strength of it
to forget alike the onslaught on pussy and the broken glass. "Finest
dorg I ever seed for a retriever, sir."

"Ah, handsome is as handsome does!" replied the Captain sententiously.
"Dogs, like children, ought to be taught to behave themselves."

Nellie, however, did not like this sort of slur on Rover's character.

"Oh! Captain Dresser," she exclaimed. "It was only his playfulness on
getting out of confinement."

"Humph!" ejaculated the old sailor--"playfulness, eh? A playful dog
like that once bit me playfully in the calf of the leg, stopping all my
play for a fortnight!"

"Oh, Rover wouldn't do that," said Bob--"No, not he!"

"Wouldn't he? I'd be sorry to give him the chance," answered the other
with a laugh, as he assisted Mrs Gilmour into an open fly, into which
the children's luggage had been already put by the attentive Dick.
"There'd be precious little of me left, I'm afraid, if he once tackled
me!"

Nellie and Bob then got into the fly, the Captain following them on
their aunt's pressing invitation to escort them all down to her house on
the south parade; while Dick, after having, with the help of the cabman,
lifted Rover, who behaved like a lamb during the operation, on to the
box-seat, where he was wedged in securely between the trunks and the
driver's legs, climbed up himself and away they all started--`packed as
tightly as herrings in a barrel,' to use the Captain's expression.

In the evening, after dinner, the whole party went down to the shore,
where Bob and Nellie made their first acquaintance with the sea; a
distant view of which they had a glimpse of previously from the balcony
of their aunt's house on the parade.

Both were in ecstasies of delight as they gazed out on the undulating
expanse of blue water, with the tiny little wavelets rippling up to
their feet caressingly, as if inviting them to wade in over the
glittering pebbles of the beach that glistened like jewels where wetted
by the tide.

"Jolly, isn't it?" cried Bob enthusiastically. "Don't it make a noise
though!"

"Not a noise," said Nellie, shocked at his unromantic description. "The
waves seem to say `Hush!' and speak to me, as softly as if they wanted
to send me to sleep!"

"Bravo, young lady!" put in the Captain, overhearing her remark.
"`Rocked in the cradle of the deep,' as the old song runs, eh? Though
I've almost forgotten all my Greek knocking about the world, or rather
had it knocked out of m