stairs, and stepped out upon the broad veranda. Afterwards came the younger children, Herbert and Eva, whose usually bright faces were shadowed now with the consciousness that it was Sunday, a fact that was aggravated rather than palliated by the radiant perfection of the weather. The Commodore, who was the most sympathetic soul alive, would, if he could have followed his own unperverted instincts, have had his children as happy on Sunday as on any other day, but it was necessary to make concessions to the Puritan spirit of the time, which ruled that a certain degree of discomfort and restraint should mark the first day of the week. But every dull look vanished as the father's step was heard, for his was one of those genial, warm-hearted, caressing natures, which are calculated to dispel the chill of even an old-fashioned Sunday. There was also a hearty brusqueness in the tone of his voice, something of the sea in the swing of his gait, and even in the movement of his full kindly gray eye, which could not fail to inspire confidence. His children flew to him at once, laying violent hands upon him, and clinging to his arms with decorously subdued shrieks of merriment, as he walked briskly to and fro. "Where's Edward?" he demanded of his eldest daughter, as they approached that young lady, who was pensively reclining in a rustic chair. "Not up yet, papa," she dreamily responded, uplifting her face for his morning salutation. "Not _awake_ yet," corrected Herbert, with a boy's unmistakable contempt for the luxurious habits of his elders. "Lazy dog!" commented the Commodore, in a voice whose irateness was wholly assumed. "If I had come down late to breakfast when I was young I would have been sent back to bed again." "That is what Ed. would like," declared Herbert. "He said it was no use calling Sunday a day of rest unless one could get all the rest one wanted, and it was hardly worth while for him to get up at all on a day when he couldn't fish or shoot or go out in his boat." "The young barbarian! After all the care and pains expended on his bringing up. What shall we do about it, Rosy?" "Call him again!" said Herbert, who, with the ever-fertile mind of tender youth, was never destitute of practical suggestions. "Bright boy! run at once and ring the bell just outside his door." As the child departed to make the clangour, so much more delightful to his own ears than to those for whom it was intended, Eva observed: "But he came in so late last night, papa, and looked very tired." The Commodore patted the head of his little girl, but he continued to