"We'll
have some sea-anemones, to commence with. No proper aquarium is
complete without them; and, when you once see them expand, showing their
red and purple hues, and watch their wonderful way of moving about, you
will soon be convinced that they are really animals and not vegetables,
which, as I believe I told you before, many wise people for a long time
supposed them to be! You just wait, missy, and you will find this out
for yourself and learn more about them, too, than I can tell you."

"Oh, yes," interposed Bob. "I saw one this morning when I was swimming,
and it looked just like a big dahlia."

"Lucky for you it wasn't a jelly-fish, or you'd have felt it as well as
seen it!" rejoined the Captain grimly--"Avast there, though, we were
talking about sea-anemones and other similar fry; and I was thinking
that the best place for us to go to get them would be--why, by Jove,
it's the very thing!"

"What's the matter now?" said Mrs Gilmour, who had been reading a
letter she had just received by the post, looking up at his sudden
exclamation. "Dear me, Captain, is anything wrong?"

"Nothing, ma'am, nothing," he replied, turning round to her--"only I've
this moment thought of a way of `killing two birds with one stone.' I
promised these youngsters, you know, if they were good--"

"I know, I know what's coming now," cried Miss Nell, again interrupting
him. Really she was a very rude little lady sometimes. "You're going
to tell us at last!"

"What, missy?" said the Captain chuckling, as she and Bob executed a
triumphal dance round him, while Dick stood grinning in the background,
his face, which had filled out considerably in the last week or two,
making him look very different to the lantern-jawed lad they had
encountered in the train, all one smile. "What, missy?"

"You're going to take us out somewhere," Bob and Nellie cried in
concert. "You promised, you know you did!"

"But, that was if you were good," he answered, enjoying their antics.
"That was the proviso, young people."

"We _are_ good," they shouted together. "Auntie says so."

The Captain put his hands to his ears to shut out their voices.

"Are they good?" he asked Mrs Gilmour. "Eh, ma'am?"

"Well, yes, I think so," said she, smiling. "Good enough as far as such
children can be, I suppose! I suppose I must not tell tales out of
school, sure, about what a little girl said the other day when somebody,
whom I won't name, went away?"