d-morning, grandpapa.'

'Ha! And who may you be, my elfin prince?' said the Doctor.

'I'm Dickie--Richard Rivers May--I'm not an elfin prince,' said the
boy, with a moment's hurt feeling. 'Papa sent me.' By that time the
boy was fast in his grandfather's embrace, and was only enough released
to give him space to answer the eager question, 'Papa--papa here?'

'Oh no; I came with Mr. Seaford.'

The Doctor hastily turned Dickie over to the two aunts, and hastened
forth to the stranger, whose name he well knew as a colonist's son, a
favourite and devoted clerical pupil of Norman's.

'Aunt Ethel,' said little Richard, with instant recognition; 'mamma
said you would be like her, but I don't think you will.'

'Nor I, Dickie, but we'll try. And who's that!'

'Yes, what am I to be like?' asked Gertrude.

'You're not Aunt Daisy--Aunt Daisy is a little girl.'

Gertrude made him the lowest of curtseys; for not to be taken for a
little girl was the compliment she esteemed above all others. Dickie's
next speech was, 'And is that Uncle Aubrey?'

'No, that's Leonard.'

Dickie shook hands with him very prettily; but then returning upon
Ethel, observed, 'I thought it was Uncle Aubrey, because soldiers
always cut their hair so close.'

The other guest was so thoroughly a colonist, and had so little idea of
anything but primitive hospitality, that he had had no notion of
writing beforehand to announce his coming, and accident had delayed the
letters by which Norman and Meta had announced their decision of
sending home their eldest boy under his care.

'Papa had no time to teach me alone,' said Dickie, who seemed to have
been taken into the family councils; 'and mamma is always busy, and I
wasn't getting any good with some of the boys that come to school to
papa.'

'Indeed, Mr. Dickie!' said the Doctor, full of suppressed laughter.

'It is quite true,' said Mr. Seaford; 'there are some boys that the
archdeacon feels bound to educate, but who are not desirable companions
for his son.'

'It is a great sacrifice,' remarked the young gentleman.

'Oh, Dickie, Dickie,' cried Gertrude, in fits, 'don't you be a prig--'

'Mamma said it,' defiantly answered Dickie.

'Only a parrot,' said Ethel, behind her handkerchief; but Dickie, who
heard whatever he was not meant to hear, answered--

'It is not a parrot, it is a white cockatoo, that the chief of
(something unutterable) brought down on his wrist like a hawk to the
missi