sir, and hear some of your sea-stories! When I tell them they don't sound the same as when you tell them. There's no salt in them." Artful Joshua! "Well, my lad," the Old Sailor had said with a chuckle (he was not insensible to flattery, the old dog!), "why not bring him here to spend the day?" "When shall it be, sir?" asked Joshua secretly delighted. "Next Wednesday, Josh," said the Old Sailor. So next Wednesday it was. And Joshua ran to Dan's house wild with delight, and coaxed Dan's parents in to giving their permission. It was on this very Wednesday morning that Dan was lying awake, waiting for seven o'clock to strike. He awoke at least two hours before the proper time to rise; and those hours appeared to him to be longer than hours ever were before. The ride itself would be an event in Dan's life; but it was not to be compared with what was to come afterwards--the spending of a whole day and night in a house on the water. During the past week Dan had been in a fever of pleasurable anticipation, and in a fever of fright also, lest it should rain upon this particular day. The previous night it _had_ rained; and Dan, lying awake for a longer time than usual, had prayed for the rain to go away. Ellen--standing at the window in his bedroom, after she had got out his clean shirt and Sunday clothes, and brushed and smoothed them, and taken up a stitch in them here and there, as women (and girls after them) say--had seen the spots of rain falling, and, joining her prayer to his, had begged very earnestly to the rain to go away and come again another day. And now the day was dawning; and Dan, opening his eyes, clapped his hands in delight to see the sun shining so brightly upon the broken jug which stood upon the window-sill, and in which was a handful of the sweet-smelling humble wall-flower. The pair of bullfinches which Joshua had bought for the Old Sailor were busily at work in their cage, which was hanging at the window, and were as conscious of the beauty of the morning as the most sensible human being could possibly be. Dan was so delighted that he whistled "Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!" And one of the bullfinches, after abstracting the last hemp-seed from the glass containing their morning meal, immediately piped out with fervid patriotism, "For Britons never, _never_, NE-_ver_ shall be slaves!" From this episode the reader will learn that the education of the bullfinches was completed. "Rule, Britannia," was not their sole vocal accomplishment. They could whistle "And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman?" in a very superior manner. On that day the bullfinches were to be presented to their new master--to whom not a hint had been given of the pleasant surprise in store for him; which made it all the more delightful.