rgery gave each other a very funny look. I should like to have
heard their later conversation.

"They're good boys," said the Bishop, with an arm still around Harry,
"capital boys, and if their governess will let them come to dinner tomorrow
we'll have a sort of party, and talk everything over. I think cook would
make a blackberry pudding. Will you arrange it Margery? Just now I want--"
He said no more, but he and Harry gripped hands.

Margery herded us gently into the hall, and gave us each two chocolate
bars.

Going home under the first pale stars, we were three rollicking blades
indeed. We no longer held hands, but we hooked arms, and swaggered and we
did not ring the bell till the last vestige of chocolate was gone.

As we waited for Mary Ellen, I said, suddenly to Angel:

"Angel, what made you ask the Bishop to sing 'John Peel'? Did you know
Harry was going to sing in the hall?"

"Oh, Harry and I fixed that up this morning," replied my senior, airily. "I
kept it to myself, 'cos I didn't want any interference, see?"

Mary Ellen, opening the door at this moment, prevented a scuffle, though I
was in too happy a mood to quarrel with any one.

Mrs. Handsomebody was surprisingly civil about our visit. She showed great
interest in the return of the Bishop's only son. Was he a nice young man?
she asked. Was he nice-looking? Did the Bishop appear to be overjoyed to
see him?

We three were seated on three stiff-backed chairs, our backs to the wall.
Angel and I told her as much as was good for her to know of the adventure.

The Seraph felt that he was being ignored, so when a pause came, he
remarked in that throaty little voice of his:

"It's a vewy bad fing to be boiled in oil."

"What's that?" snapped Mrs. Handsomebody. "Say that again!"

"It's a vewy bad fing to be boiled in oil," reiterated The Seraph suavely,
"thirty-nine of 'em there was--for the captain was stabbed alweady--boilin'
away in oil. Their _ears was full of it_."

Mrs. Handsomebody gripped the arms of her chair, and leaned towards him.

"Alexander, I have never known a child of such tender years to possess so
unquenchable a lust for frightfulness. It must be eradicated at all costs."

The Seraph stood, then, balancing himself on the rung of his chair,

"'Once aboard the lugger,'" he sang out, slapping his plump little thigh,
"'and the gell is mine!'"

Mrs. Handsomebody sank back in her chair. She said:

"This is appalling. David--John--t