“I think they’re too funny for anything,” replied the lady, with great enthusiasm. “I _do_ wish you would bring them to call upon me. I’m longing to see an _original_ young gentleman.” “Thank you,” said I. “And I’ll have Toddie bring a bouquet by way of atonement.” “Do,” she replied, as I allowed her to pass from the pew. The word was an insignificant one, but it made me happy once more. “You see, Uncle Harry,” exclaimed Budge, as we left the church together, “the Sunday-school wasn’t open yet, an’ I wanted to hear if they’d sing again in church; so I came in, an’ you wasn’t in papa’s seat, an’ I knew you was _some_where, so I _looked_ for you.” “Bless you,” thought I, snatching him into my arms as if to hurry him into Sabbath-school, but really to give him a kiss of grateful affection, “you did right—_exactly_ right.” My Sunday dinner was unexceptional in point of quantity and quality, and a bottle of my brother-in-law’s claret proved to be the most excellent; yet a certain uneasiness of mind prevented my enjoying the meal as thoroughly as under other circumstances I might have done. My uneasiness came of a mingled sense of responsibility and ignorance. I felt that it was the proper thing for me to see that my nephews spent the day with some sense of the requirements and duties of the Sabbath; but how I was to bring it about I hardly knew. The boys were too small to have Bible-lessons administered to them, and they were too lively to be kept quiet by any ordinary means. After a great deal of thought, I determined to consult the children themselves, and try to learn what their parents’ custom had been. “Budge,” said I, “what do you do Sundays when your papa and mamma are home? What do they read to you—what do they talk about?” “Oh, they swing us—lots!” said Budge, with brightening eyes. “An’ zey takes us to get jacks,” observed Toddie. “Oh, yes!” exclaimed Budge; “jacks-in-the-pulpit,—don’t you know?” “Hum—ye—es; I do remember some such thing in my youthful days; they grow where there’s plenty of mud, don’t they?” “Yes, an’ there’s a brook there, an’ ferns, an’ birchbark, an’ if you don’t look out you’ll tumble into the brook when you go to get birch.” “An’ we goes to Hawksnest Rock,” piped Toddie, “an’ papa carries us up on his back when we gets tired.” “An’ he makes us whistles,” said Budge. “Budge,” said I, rather hastily, “enough. In the language of the poet ‘These earthly pleasures I resign’ and I’m rather astonished that your papa hasn’t taught you to do likewise. Don’t he ever read to you?” “Oh, yes,” cried Budge, clapping his hands as a happy thought struck him. “He gets down the Bible—the great _big_ Bible, you know—an’ we all lay on the floor, an’ he reads us stories out of it. There’s David, an’ Noah, an’ when Christ was a little boy, an’ Joseph, an’ turn back Pharo’s army hallelujah——” “And what?”