When the party arrived at the hotel and Aunt Sophy was informed of what had happened, her excitement was great. The children were caressed and scolded in a breath. After a while, however, the enormity of their behavior was dwelt upon by all their guardians together. “I was saying, ma’am, that I couldn’t never take Miss Amy and Master Johnny near to that lake again. Oh, I couldn’t! The hotel garden, I couldn’t go farther, not with any peace of mind.” “You hear what nurse says, children,” said Aunt Sophy; “she is quite right. It would be impossible for me to allow you to go out again unless you made me a promise, oh, a faithful promise.” Amy was tired with the long walk after all the excitement; and she was always an impressionable little thing. She began to cry and protest that she never meant any harm, that the boat was so pretty, and that she was sure it was fastened and could not get away. But Johnny held his ground. “I could have doned it myself,” he said; “I know how to row. Nobody wasn’t wanted--if that fellow had let us alone.” “Where is the gentleman, Rosalind?” cried Mrs. Lennox. “Oh, how could you be so ungrateful as to let him go without asking where he was to be found? To think he should have saved those precious children and not to know where to find him to thank him! Oh, children, only think, if you had been brought home all cold and stiff, and laid out there never to give any more trouble, never to go home again, never to speak to your poor, distracted auntie, or to poor Rosalind, or to-- Oh, my darlings! What should I have done if you had been brought home to me like that? It would have killed me. I should never more have held up my head again.” At this terrible prospect, and at the sight of Aunt Sophy’s tears, Amy flung her arms as far as they would go round that portly figure, and hid her sobs upon her aunt’s bosom. Johnny began to yield; he grew pale, and his big eyes veiled themselves with a film of tears. To think of lying there cold and stiff, as Aunt Sophy said, daunted the little hero. “I could have doned it,” he said, but faltered, and his mouth began to quiver. “And Uncle John,” cried Mrs. Lennox, “and Rex! what would you have said never, never to see them again?” Johnny, in his own mind, piled up the agony still higher--and the rabbits, and the pigeons, and his own pet guinea-pig, and his pony! He flung himself into Aunt Sophy’s lap, which was so large, and so soft, and so secure.