IT would be hard to find a pleasanter family group than that which had gathered round the tea-table at Wilbourne Rectory one hot bright evening in the end of July: a kindly-looking mother, with a dark, sweet, brunette face, that _would_ not be careworn spite of forty years of life, seven children, and a slender purse; a tall, slight, brown-bearded father, a little bald, and with deep lines of thought on the broad forehead and around the rather sunken blue eyes; a fair, round-faced girl of fifteen, sitting next him; two smaller lasses, with long black hair almost straight, clear brown complexions, and a bit of bright scarlet bloom on each cheek, that was just like the mother's, only fresher and less fixed; a little curly-haired lad of eight, that was like nobody in particular; and last, but not least, a Sandhurst cadet, a well-grown youth of seventeen, with dark hair, cut very short in military style, and a little dark down on cheek and lip, which _he_ called whiskers and moustaches. He sat on one side of his mother, and on the other sat a person who was _not_ a member of the family--Mr. Cunningham's curate, a great big broad-shouldered young man, six feet three at least in height, with a pleasant, open face, rather sun-burnt, and the most good-tempered smile that you can possibly conceive. Two of the children of the house were absent--the second son, a midshipman in the Queen's service, who was now on his way to Japan; and the third, who was expected home this very evening from school. A little talk sprang up about him among his brothers and sisters, begun by a 'wonder' from one of the little girls as to when he would arrive; and strange to say, at the mention of his name, the lines on the father's brow deepened a little, and Mrs. Cunningham's face took for a moment quite a sorrowful expression. 'I almost hope he will not come till tea is over,' she said. It did not sound like a motherly sentiment, but it was spoken out of the depths of a true motherly feeling.