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" Fool Metaphora. She very fool girl. Poor nowti [naughty] Metaphora ! " ' The following day I discovered the truth of this description for myself. Looking for some of my letters, which had been placed under a weight on my dressing-table, I found that they all were missing. At last, protruding from a packing-case, which, with an open end against the wall, was supporting a mili-tary chest, I espied the tips of a piece of foolscap paper and of a torn copy of an old ' Evening Standard.' A near examination showed me that all my letters, my envelopes, and the waste paper used for my pack-ing, had been rolled up together into a tight ball and stuffed into this hiding-place. I asked Metaphora that evening what had induced her to do this. ' Ah,' she exclaimed with a long meditative breath ; then her eyes shone as if she had solved a problem. ' Nowti Metaphora ! ' she exclaimed. ' Me nowti— me very fool girl ! ' And then putting her head down and giving a sort of caper like a colt, she bounded out of the room and rustled down the stairs like an avalanche. The servants, Mrs. Falkland told me, were as much amused at her as anybody. One of her pecu-liarities was a horror of beef, or, as she called it, ' bullock meat.' It was a favourite practical joke with the Scotch cook, Fraser, to give her a plate of beef with some chicken bones stuck amongst the slices, when, thinking the meat chicken, she would 140 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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