When we first make his acquaintance, Harry Burton, a salesman of white goods in New York, is a bachelor aged twenty-eight, and is in some doubt as to where he shall spend a short holiday, so as to secure a quiet time for reading; when he receives a letter from his married sister, Mrs Lawrence, asking him to go to her house, while she is absent with her husband on a few days' visit to an old school-fellow. She admits that she is not quite disinterested in making the request, as she shall feel easier about her two small boys Budge and Toddie, aged respectively five and three, if there is a man in the house; but promises him undisturbed quiet, and leisure for improving his mind. Mr Burton accepts with alacrity, having a vivid recollection of a lovely house, exquisite flowers, first-rate horses, and unexceptionable claret and cigars; to which the remembrance of the pure eyes and serene expression of his elder nephew (whom he has only seen on flying visits to his sister) lends an additional charm. It occasions him a slight misgiving when the driver of the fly in which he proceeds from Hillcrest Station to Mrs Lawrence's house, alludes to his young relatives as 'imps;' and it is not without some heart-sinking that he meets them on the road, in torn and disreputable garments, each bearing a dirty knotted towel, which Budge promptly informs his uncle are not towels, but 'lovely dollies.' Mr Burton is self-sacrificing enough to hoist the boys into the carriage; and it is rather hard on him that, just as Toddie raises an awful yell, on being forbidden to try and open a valuable watch, they should meet another carriage containing Miss Mayton, a charming lady, whose presence at Hillcrest, we imagine, may have had something to do with determining Mr Burton's movements. However, the lady is gracious in spite of the dusty and heated appearance of her admirer, caused by his contest with Toddie, and he arrives at his destination in a celestial frame of mind.