If you are then I think
it is not quite like you to be satirical."
"I am no believer in satire, Connie. And I didn't mean any. The swallows
are lovely creatures, and there would be no harm if the girls were a little
steadier than the swallows. Further satire than that I am innocent of."
"I don't mind that much, papa. Only I'm steady enough, and no thanks to me
for it," she added with a sigh.
"Connie," I said, "it's all for the sake of your wings that you're kept in
your nest."
She did not stay out long this first day, for the life the air gave her
soon tired her weak body. But the next morning she was brighter and better,
and longing to get up and go out again. When she was once more laid on her
couch on the lawn, in the midst of the world of light and busy-ness, in
which the light was the busiest of all, she said to me:
"Papa, I had such a strange dream last night: shall I tell it you?"
"If you please, my dear. I am very fond of dreams that have any sense in
them--or even of any that have good nonsense in them. I woke this morning,
saying to myself, 'Dante, the poet, must have been a respectable man, for
he was permitted by the council of Florence to carry the Nicene Creed and
the Multiplication Table in his coat of arms.
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