The white sun, which five minutes ago had burnt up the last glittering drop from the paper-faced asters, had heated to their widest and thinnest expansion the humid bubbles of scent risen from the flower beds and the various dung, and now these met and interfusingly burst upon the eye-aching paths, and the chimp, as she inhaled each new cocktail of brittle essences, was switchbacked dizzily over the peaks of jungle fears and raptures, and into the wide dips of its rich and scented ennui. A flamingo spread its rosy wings, the sun stared, a lion sprang in his hollow cage, thunder muttered in the bankéd west, bears, tigers, ounces, pards gamboled before her; the unwieldy elephant, to make her mirth, used all his might, and wreathed his lithe proboscis.

“Back in Eden!” thought Emily, as she watched a child in a dyed frock reward the last-mentioned comedy turn with a bun.

She had not gone very far when she saw, in a quiet corner behind the small cats’ house, an empty cage, the door of which was unlocked, and, recalling the purpose of her visit, she congratulated herself on this opportunity of viewing the bars from their hinder side, and accordingly, with a wary glance about her, she nipped into it. But no sooner had she closed the door, she saw two people advancing upon her from different directions, and a sudden panic seized her. “For,” thought she, “they will surely be amazed at my costume, and will speedily attract a crowd here, and I shall either be advertised as a runaway, and ultimately haled back to whatever punishment Amy chooses to devise, or I shall be locked in before I have made up my mind whether I want to stay or not. I begin to feel that I don’t.”

The intruders, however, were still pretty far off when an idea occurred to the sagacious creature, which was that the best she could do was to slip off her dress and pretend to be a true captive, dully asleep, so that she should attract no particular attention, and, when the coast was clear again, she could reassume her clothes and quietly emerge. This course she at once embarked upon, though not without a blush or two, and before the approaching pair had met outside the cage, her dress and parasol were hidden beneath the straw, and nothing more unusual was to be seen than a simian and reclining edition of ‘September Morn’.

“Darling!”

“Beloved!”

These words have an irresistible appeal to every womanly heart, and Emily, hearing them, could not restrain herself from raising an eyelid and taking a sly peep at the enthusiastic speakers.

She almost sat up in her amazement. The woman, though disguised in a tenderer smile than Emily had hitherto noted on her face, was well-known to her as Mrs. Dunedin, a young matron of some few months’ standing, and an intimate friend of Amy’s. The young man, her interlocutor, was certainly not her husband, who was, the chimp remembered well, a tall and soldierly-looking man, whereas this was as weedy and ill-looking a scrub as ever she had set eyes upon. But Mrs. Dunedin was clearly not of this opinion, for, having sealed her greeting with a hearty kiss, she held his hand in hers and eyed him with obvious gusto.

“Good heavens!” thought the chimp. “Can this indeed be Amy’s twin soul, the most high-minded of all her friends? Can it be she who complained so bitterly to Amy, not a fortnight ago, of the carnal side of passion, and the indecency of the male form? If neither the frigidity of his wife nor the inferiority of his rival can protect a husband’s honor, why, no man, not even Mr. Fatigay, is safe!”

At that moment, their first raptures having subsided, they glanced perfunctorily into the cage, and:

“Why!” said Mrs. Dunedin. “What an enormous chimp! It’s almost as big as that one that Amy Flint now has, and has trained, by sheer force of personality, she told me, to serve her as a maid.”

“Well,” said the young man, with a sneer, “it might very well be the other way round, for, if you dressed this one up in Amy’s clothes, I’m sure I should find it hard to distinguish between them, except that the ape has the sweeter expression of the two.”

“What? Do you say so?” said Amy’s friend, with a titter. “To tell you the truth, there is a likeness, Amy being so small and dark. But I’m greatly surprised to hear you mention it, for I always thought you were deeply in love with her. In fact, she told me so.”

“Not I,” cried the young man. “It’s true I visited her a good deal a few months ago, but then I got bored with her superior airs, and . . .”

“Oh, come!” interrupted the lady, with a slightly acid smile. “I know more about it than that. You can’t deceive me.”

“After all, why should I?” said he. “Well, if you want to know, I was rather keen at one time, and hung about her longer than any man in his senses would. But she’s one of those who’ll allow nothing but a soul passion before marriage, whatever might be the case after. So I withdrew, and left her to this African fiance of hers. And, if he’s the sort of person she hinted he was. . . .”

“Oh, he is,” interpolated the lady.

“Well, he’ll have a pretty thin time, if you ask me,” rejoined the young man.