"How do you do?" she said demurely; "it's awfully nice to get up so early, isn't it? We heard auntie creeping about on tippity-toes, you know, so we came, too. Reginald said she was pretending to be burglars, but I think she's going 'paddling.' Are you, auntie?" "No, dear; not this morning," answered Lisbeth, shaking her head. "Then you are going for a row in Uncle Dick's boat. How fine!" "An' you'll take us with you, won't you, Uncle Dick?" cried the Imp eagerly. "We'll be pirates. I'll be 'Scarlet Sam,' an' you can be 'Timothy Bone, the bo'sun,' like you were last time. "Impossible, my Imp," I said firmly. He looked at me incredulously for a moment, then, seeing I meant it, his lip began to quiver. "I didn't think 'T-Timothy B-Bone' would ever desert me," he said, and turned away. "Oh, auntie!" exclaimed Dorothy, "won't you take us?" "Dear--not this morning." "Are you going far, then, Uncle Dick?" "Yes, very far," I answered, glancing uneasily from the Imp's drooping figure to Lisbeth. "I wonder where?" "Oh--well--er--down the rivers," I stammered, quite at a loss. "Y-e-s, but where?" persisted Dorothy. "Well, to--er--to--" "To the 'Land of Heart's Delight,'" Lisbeth put in, "and you may come with us, after all, if Uncle Dick will take you." "To be sure he will, if your auntie wishes it," I cried, "so step aboard, my hearties, and lively!" In a moment the Imp's hand was in mine, and he was smiling up at me with wet lashes. "I knew 'Timothy Bone' could never be a--a 'mutinous rogue,'" he said, and turned to aid Dorothy aboard with the air of an admiral on his flagship. And now, all being ready, he unhitched the painter, or, as he said, "slipped our cable," and we glided out into midstream. "A ship," he said thoughtfully, "always has a name. What shall we call this one? Last time we were 'pirates' and she was the Black Death--" "Never mind last time, Imp," I broke in; "to-day she is the Joyful Hope." "That doesn't sound very 'pirate-y,' somehow," he responded with a disparaging shake of the head, "but I s'pose it will have to do." And so, upon that summer morning, the good ship Joyful Hope set sail for the "Land of the Heart's Delight," and surely no vessel of her size ever carried quite such a cargo of happiness before or since. And once again "Scarlet Sam" stamped upon the "quarter-deck" and roared orders anent "lee shrouds" and "weather braces," with divers injunctions concerning the "helm," while his eyes rolled and he flourished his "murderous cutlass" as he had done upon a certain other memorable occasion. Never, never again could there be just such another morning as this--for two of us at least.