it to my wife. It's
Joseph that's helping me, and for hindrance I've got a Methodist chapel
and a boarded floor. There's boarded floors to her kitchen, and back
kitchen, as Mr. Mortimer put in for her, because she was so rheumatic,
they air what she chiefly vally's the place for. But at some of them
small West India islands there's a fine opening, Joey says, for a man
with a headpiece as can cultivate, and knows what crops require, and I
ought to go. I'm only sixty-one or thereabouts. You'll not say anything
about it, sir," he continued, as the twins, who were in the garden, came
towards Valentine.

They brought him in triumph to the schoolroom, which was decorated, and
full of the wedding presents the children had made for their father and
the dear mamma.

"And you'll remember," said Bertram, "how you promised us--promised us
_with all your might,_ that we should come to Melcombe."

"Yes, all of us," proceeded Anastasia; "he said the little ones too."

"So you should have done, you poor darlings, but for that accident,"
said Valentine.

"And we were to see the pears and apples gathered, and have such fun. Do
you know that you're a sort of uncle now to us?"

"What sort? The right sort?"

"Yes, and now when shall we come?"

"I am afraid I shall be away all the winter."

"In the spring, then, and father and the dear mamma."

"It's a long time till the spring," said Valentine, with a sigh; "but if
I am at Melcombe then-"

"You'll have us?"

"Yes."

"Then let it be in the Easter holidays," said Johnnie, "that I may come
too."

"All right," said Valentine, and he took leave of them, and departed in
one of their father's carriages for the Junction, muttering as he looked
back at the house, "No, you'll never see Melcombe, youngsters. I shall
be at the other end of the earth, perhaps, by that time."

"Oh, what a long time to wait!" quoth the younger Mortimers; "five
months and a half to Easter--twenty-three weeks--twenty-three times
seven--what a lot of days! Now, if we were going to sea, as the Brandon
baby is, we shouldn't mind waiting. What a pity that such a treat should
come to a little stupid thing that does nothing but sputter and crow
instead of to us! Such a waste of pleasure." They had never heard of
"the irony of fate," but in their youthful manner they felt it then.

So St. George Mortimer Brandon was borne off to the _Curlew_, and there,
indifferent to the glory of sunsets, or the splendour of