pied in making observations on the sky, instead of minding what he was doing, pushed the house a little on one side as it was slipping into the sockets; and poking their horizontal spout through our library window, they have knocked down this shelf of books, and frightened poor Miss Clara out of her wits."
"Stupid idiots," said the baronet; "they might have killed her if the books had fallen upon her."
"I beg your pardon, Sir Ambrose," said the culprit, putting his head through the window; "I do not conceive Miss Montagu would have been injured even if the books had fallen upon her. The weight of her body, I should apprehend, must be nearly equivalent to that of the books; consequently, the resistance she was capable of opposing, being fully equal to the blow she would have received, the effect must have been neutralized."
"Confound your explanations!" said Sir Ambrose, whose anger was increased tenfold by this speech; 'you've killed my niece, and now you want to drive me distracted. Clara,
