Misunderstood. Florence Montgomery

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СКАЧАТЬ bringing up the rear with the 'very only little girl he knows who is smaller than him.'" The father's eye rested smiling on his two children as he pictured the sight to himself.

      "And when may it be?" asked Humphrey. "Father, please settle a day for the harvest to begin."

      "When the yellow corn is almost brown, you may settle a day for the harvest," answered his father. "I have a reaping-machine this year, and so it will soon be cut when once they begin."

      "I shall come every day to these fields and see how it is getting on," said Miles.

      "I know a much quicker way," said Humphrey, jumping down from the gate, and pulling up several ears of corn by the roots.

      "I shall have them up in the nursery, and see them ripen every day."

      "Why, you foolish boy," said his father, "you have picked them too soon, they will never ripen now."

      Humphrey looked ruefully at his ears of corn. "I quite forgot," said he.

      "They will never ripen now," repeated little Miles, sorrowfully.

      "Never mind, Miles," said Humphrey, "I will plant them in the sunniest part of our own garden, where the soil is much better than here, and where, I daresay, they will grow much finer and better than if they had been left to ripen with the rest. Perhaps they will thank me some day for having pulled them up out of the rough field, and planted them in such a more beautiful place."

      "Perhaps they will," breathed little Miles, clasping his hands with pleasure at the idea.

      Miles was leaning against the gate, looking up admiringly at his brother, and Humphrey was sitting on the topmost bar, with the ears of corn in his hand.

      "Let us go," said Sir Everard, suddenly; "it is intensely hot here, and I am longing to get under those limes in the next field."

      The little boys climbed over the gate, and ran on to the indicated spot, followed more leisurely by their elders.

      Sir Everard and Uncle Charlie threw themselves down on the grass in the shade, and the children, seating themselves by their father, begged for a story.

      "Sailors are the men for stories," was his answer; "you had better ask your uncle."

      Uncle Charlie proved a charming story teller. He told them of sharks and crocodiles, of boar-hunting, and of wonderful adventures by land and sea.

      The children hung on his every word.

      The shadows grew long, and the sun began to sink over the cornfields, and still they were absorbed in listening, and their father in watching their sparkling eyes and varying countenances.

      "Come," said Sir Everard at last, jumping up, "no more stories, or we shall be here all night. It is past six, and Virginie will be wondering what has become of us."

      "Oh!" said Humphrey, drawing a long breath, as he descended from those heights of wonder to the trifling details of everyday life, recalled by the mention of Virginie, "how delicious it has been! I hope, father, you will let me be a sailor when I grow up?"

      "Well, I don't think that will exactly be your vocation," answered Sir Everard; "but there is plenty of time before you."

      "Me, too," said little Miles; "I want to be a sailor too."

      "You, my darling," said Sir Everard, fondly; "no, not you; I couldn't spare you my sweet little fellow."

      And he stooped, as he spoke, to kiss the little face that was uplifted so pleadingly to his, the lips that were always so ready to respond to his caresses.

      Humphrey had turned away his head, and was gazing intently at his ears of corn.

      "Is he jealous, I wonder?" thought Uncle Charlie, peering at the little face under the straw hat, and wondering whether it was a tear he saw shining among the long dark eyelashes.

      But before he could make up his mind if it were so, the child's eyes were sparkling with excitement over a curious creature with a thousand legs, which had crawled out of the corn in his hand.

      "And now jump up, boys, and come home." Sir Everard, as he spoke, picked up his cane, and taking his brother-in-law's arm, walked slowly on. "We shall have all these feats reproduced, Charlie, of that I am quite sure. Virginie has a nice time before her."

      There was very little tea eaten that evening, the children were in such a hurry to get down again to the delectable anecdotes.

      But Sir Everard took alarm at Miles's flushed cheeks and bright eyes, and would allow no more exciting stories so close upon bed-time.

      "Will you finish about the crocodile to-morrow?" asked Humphrey, creeping up his uncle's leg, as he came to wish him good-night.

      "To-morrow I go, my boy," he answered.

      "Going to-morrow!" said Humphrey. "What a very short visit!"

      "What a very short visit!" echoed Miles, who always thought it incumbent on him to say the same thing as his brother.

      "I will pay you a longer visit next time," said Uncle Charlie, as he kissed the two little faces.

      "But when will next time be?" persisted Humphrey.

      "Yes! when will next time be?" repeated Miles.

      "Ah! when indeed?" said Uncle Charlie.

      CHAPTER III

      "I have got so many plans in my head, that I think I shall burst," said Humphrey to Miles the next morning, as they stood on the door-steps, watching the dog-cart vanishing in the distance, on its way to the station, with their father and uncle. "Some of the things Uncle Charlie was telling us about would be quite easy for us to do. You wouldn't be afraid, I suppose, to climb up the big tree overhanging the pond where the water-lilies are?"

      "No," said Miles, rather doubtfully, "not if you went on first and gave me your hand: but that tree is a long way off—wouldn't one of the trees in the orchard do?"

      "Oh, no! it wouldn't be half the fun. Don't you remember the man in the story crawled along the branch that stretched over the water? Well, this tree has a branch hanging right over the pond; and I want to crawl along it, like he did."

      "Hadn't we better ask Virginie if we may go all that way alone?" suggested Miles, in the vain hope of putting off the evil moment.

      Humphrey, however, did not see the force of this argument, and so they started off.

      It was a very hot day, and after they had got out of the farm-yard there was no shade at all.

      Humphrey skipped through the meadows and over the gates, and Miles followed him as quickly as he could, but the sun was very hot on his head, and he soon got wearied and fell back.

      Humphrey did not perceive how languidly his little brother was following him, till a faint cry from behind reached him.

      "Humphie, please stop; I can't keep up to you."

      Instantly he ran back.

      "I'm so tired, Humphie, and so hot, shall we go home?"

      "Go home! why we are close to the pond now. Look, Miles, it is only across СКАЧАТЬ