aunt Polly!" said Nellie, the neat-handed, carefully lifting
up the album out of Sarah's way so that she might spread the cloth. "I
declare I never thought once of looking out of the window to see if it
were still wet. Did you, Bob?"

"No," he answered, "I was too busy helping you, Nell."

"Ah, my dearies," interposed Mrs Gilmour, taking advantage of the
opportunity to point a moral, "you see what it is not to be idle and
having something to do! If you had not both been so engrossed with your
task, you, Master Bob, would have been `Oh-ing' all over the house and
going to each window in turn to see if the rain had stopped, looking
like a bear with a sore head; while you, Miss Nell, would probably have
shed as many tears as would have floated a jolly-boat, as Captain
Dresser would say in his sailor language!"

"Oh, auntie!" exclaimed Bob impetuously, "I never say `Oh' like that, do
I?"

"Sure you've answered the question yourself!" replied Mrs Gilmour,
speaking in her racy brogue. "That's just what I should have had to
listen to all the morning but for my thinking of that album, which I'm
glad has amused you both, my dears, so well. Ah, children, children,
there's nothing like having something to do. I'll tell you something
one of the poets, Cowper I think, has written about this in his homely
verse:--

"`An idler is a watch that wants both hands;
As useless as it goes as when it stands!'

"What d'you think of that, me dears, for an illustration of a person
without occupation for mind or body--does the cap fit anybody here, eh?"

Bob was silent; but Nellie took the lesson to heart.

"Yes, auntie, I know it's true enough," she replied. "I like those
lines; papa taught them to me when I was a tiny little girl. I wonder
if he learnt them first from you?"

"No, dearie," said Mrs Gilmour, drawing her towards her with an
affectionate caress. "Our father, your grandpapa that was, taught that
little verse to us years ago, when your papa and I were of the same age
as Bob and yourself; and I have never forgotten them, as you see,
dearie. But, sit down now and have your luncheon. Bob, come to the
table; Bob! What on earth are you staring so out of the window now for,
I wonder? Bob, I say!"

This repetition of his name in a louder key made the delinquent jump;
and he turned round in a hurry.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

"TO-MORROW COME NEVER!"

"I really beg your pardon, Aunt Polly, for my inattention!" cri