'
'Lizzie, how can you?' said Helen peevishly.
'How strange it is,' said Anne, 'that so many old family houses
should have been built in damp places.'
'Our ancestors were once apparently frogs,' said Rupert; unhappily
reminding Helen of her sister's parody.
'Well,' said Elizabeth, 'I can understand why monasteries should have
been built in damp places, near rivers or bogs, both for the sake of
the fish, and to be useful in draining; but why any other mortal
except Dutchmen, tadpoles, and newts, should delight in mud and mire,
passes my poor comprehension.'
Rupert pointed to a frog which Dora's foot had startled from its
hiding-place, and said, 'Pray, why, according to my theory, should
not the human kind have once been frogs? leap-frog being only a
return to our natural means of progression.'
'And bull-frogs in a course of becoming stalwart gentlemen,' said
Anne.
'Yes, we often hear of a croaking disposition, do not we, Helen?'
said Elizabeth; 'you see both that propensity, and a love of marshes,
are but indications of a former state of existence.
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