"Thank you, Laura, as much as if you had, but I hope we shall never be in such a scrape again! If Frank were here, he would put us both in mind to thank a merciful God for taking so much care of us, and bringing us safely home!" "Yes, Harry! It is perhaps a good thing being in danger sometimes, to remind us that we cannot be safe or happy an hour without God's care, so in our prayers to-night we must remember what has happened, and return thanks very particularly." It was long past five before Harry and Laura reached Holiday House, where Lord Rockville met them at the drawing-room door, looking taller, and grander, and graver than ever, while Lady Rockville rose from her sofa, and came up to them, saying, in a tone of gentle reproach, "My dear children! you ought to return home before the dinner hour, and not keep his Lordship waiting!" The very idea of Lord Rockville waiting dinner was too dreadful ever to have entered their heads till this minute; but Harry and Laura immediately explained how exceedingly sorry they were for what had occurred, and to show that it was their misfortune rather than their fault, they told the whole frightful story of the mad bull, to which Lady Rockville listened, as if her very hair were standing upon end, to hear of such doings. She even turned up her eyes with astonishment to think what a wonderful escape they had made; but his Lordship frowned through his spectacles, and leaned his chin upon his stick, looking, as Harry thought, very like a bear upon a pole. "Pshaw!--nonsense!" exclaimed Lord Rockville impatiently. "The bull would have done you no harm! He is a most respectable, quiet, well-disposed animal, and brought an excellent character from his last place! I never heard a complaint of him before!" "It is curious," observed Laura, "that all bulls are reckoned peaceable and tame, till they have tossed two or three people, and killed them!" "I thought," added Lord Rockville, looking very grand and contemptuous, "that Harry was grown more a man than to be so easily put to flight. When a bull, another time, threatens to toss you, seize hold of his tail,--or toss him!--or, in short, do anything rather than run away the first time an animal looks at you. This is a mere cock-and-a-bull story, to excuse your keeping me waiting almost a quarter of an hour for my dinner!--you should be made guard of a mail-coach for a month, to teach you punctuality, Master Graham." Lord Rockville gravely looked at his watch, while Harry luckily considered how often his grandmama had recommended him to make no answer when he was scolded, so he nearly bit off the tip of his tongue to keep it quiet, while he could not but wish, in his own mind, that my Lord himself saw how very fierce the bull had looked.