"Will you soon be out of your bath, father?... Are you just about soaping?... What are you doing now?... Are you sponging now?... What a splash father is having! He must be drying himself now, he is so very quiet." Then sounded the unlocking of a door, and the scamper of little feet. "I must congratulate you on the satisfactory way in which you performed your ablutions this morning," was Uncle Charlie's salutation to his brother-in-law, as he entered the breakfast room with a boy on each side of him. Sir Everard laughed. "There are no secrets in this house, you see," he answered, as he shook hands. "What a lovely day!" "Glorious! but it is going to be very hot. If I remember right, the walk to church is shady all the way. Do these little fellows go to church?" "Not Miles, but I generally take Humphrey; and wonderful to say he is as quiet as possible. I really think church is the only place in the world where he can sit still." Humphrey was engaged during the whole of breakfast time in finding the places in his prayer-book, and was too much occupied to talk. "There!" he exclaimed triumphantly, as he put in the last marker, and restrained himself with a violent effort as he was about to throw his prayer-book in the air, "now they are all found." "And now you had better go and dress," said his father, "so as not to keep your uncle and me waiting." Humphrey joined them in the hall at the last minute, having been detained by a skirmish with Virginie. Their way to church lay through the flower-garden and down the avenue. They went out by the side-door, leaving Miles looking disconsolately after them, his pretty little face and slight figure framed in the old doorway. They walked on together in silence for some time. Sir Everard was enjoying the calm beauty of the summer day; Humphrey was in pursuit of a butterfly; and Uncle Charlie was looking round at the evidences of his dead sister's taste in the laying out of the flower-garden, and thinking of the last time he had walked through it to church, when she had been by his side. "How hot that boy will make himself before we get to church," said Sir Everard, presently; "I really don't know what he is made of, to run on a day like this." "He is a fine boy," said Uncle Charlie, as he watched the active little figure skipping over the flower-beds, "and seems as strong and well as possible." "Yes," said the baronet, "Humphrey has never had a day's illness in his life. He takes after my family, and is going to be as strong and as tall as they." "He is very like some of the old family pictures I was looking at this morning; the same upright, well-built figure, and dark eyes. Now Miles is altogether different, so fair and slender." "I fear Miles inherits his mother's constitution," answered the baronet, in a troubled tone. "He is very delicate, Charlie, and the least chill brings on croup, or a nasty little cough. I feel very anxious about him sometimes."