An awful
pause took place, during which, a feather falling on the ground would
have startled them, when suddenly a loud shout from Peter Grey and the
other children, which was gaily echoed from the top of the ladder, made
Laura venture to look up, and there was Harry safe in the gardener's
arms, who soon helped him down to the ground, where he immediately asked
pardon of everybody for the fright he had given them.

There was no time for more than half a scold from Mrs. Crabtree, as Mrs.
Darwin's car had been waiting some time; so Harry said she might be
owing him the rest, on some future occasion.

"Yes! and a hundred lashes besides!" added Peter Grey, laughing. "Pray
touch him up well, Mrs. Crabtree, when you are about it. There is no law
against cruelty to boys!"

This put Mrs. Crabtree into such a rage, that she followed Peter with a
perfect hail-storm of angry words, till at last, for a joke, he put up
Mrs. Darwin's umbrella to screen himself, and immediately afterwards the
car drove slowly off.

When uncle David heard all the adventures at Ivy Lodge, he listened most
attentively to "the confessions of Master Harry Graham," and shook his
head in a most serious manner after they were concluded, saying, "I have
always thought that boys are like cats, with nine lives at least! You
should be hung up in a basket, Harry, as they do with unruly boys in the
South Sea Islands, where such young gentlemen as you are left dangling
in the air for days together without a possibility of escape!"

"I would not care for that compared with being teazed and worried by
Mrs. Crabtree. I really wish, uncle David, that Dr. Bell would order me
never to be scolded any more! It is very bad for me! I generally feel an
odd sort of over-all-ish-ness as soon as she begins; and I am getting
too big now, for any thing but a birch-rod like Frank. How pleasant it
is to be a grown-up man, uncle David, as you are, sitting all day at the
club with your hat on your head, and nothing to do but look out of the
window. That is what I call happiness!"

"But once upon a time, Harry," said Lady Harriet, "when I stopped in the
carriage for your uncle David at the club, he was in the middle of such
a yawn at the window, that he very nearly dislocated his jaw! it was
quite alarming to see him, and he told me in a great secret, that the
longest and most tiresome hours of his life are, when he has nothing
particular to do."

"Now, at this moment, I have n