"I can't think what's the use of Harry's coming home," Gertrude was heard saying to Richard. "It is very disagreeable;" whereat Mary relapsed into a giggle, and Ethel felt frantic.

"Richard! Richard! what is to be done with Mary? She can't help it, I believe, but this is not the way to treat the mercy that--"

"Mary had better go and lie down in her own room," said Richard, tenderly and gravely.

"Oh, please! please!" began Mary, "I shall not see him when he comes back!"

"If you can't behave properly when he does come," said Richard, "there is no use in being there."

"Remember, Ritchie," said Ethel, thinking him severe, "she has not been well this long time."

Mary began to plead, but, with his own pretty persuasive manner, he took her by the hand, and drew her into his room; and when he came down, after an interval, it was to check Blanche, who would have gone up to interrupt her with queries about the perpetual blue merino. He sat down with Blanche on the staircase window-seat, and did not let her go till he had gently talked her out of flighty spirits into the soberness of thankfulness.

Ethel, meanwhile, had still done nothing but stray about, long for loneliness, find herself too unsteady to finish her letters to Flora and Tom; and, while she tried to make Gertrude think Harry a pleasant acquisition, she hated her own wild heart, that could not rejoice, nor give thanks, aright.

By and by Mary came down, with her bonnet on, quite quiet now. "I am going to church with Ritchie," she said. Ethel caught at the notion, and it spread through the house. Dr May, who just then came in with his two sons, looked at Harry, saying, "What do you think of it? Shall we go, my boy?" And Harry, as soon as he understood, declared that he should like nothing better. It seemed what they all needed, even Aubrey and Gertrude begged to come, and, when the solemn old minster was above their heads, and the hallowed stillness around them, the tightened sense of half-realised joy began to find relief in the chant of glory. The voices of the sanctuary, ever uplifting notes of praise, seemed to gather together and soften their emotions; and agitation was soothed away, and all that was oppressive and tumultuous gave place to sweet peace and thankfulness. Ethel dimly remembered the like sense of relief, when her mother had hushed her wild ecstasy, while sympathising with her joy.

Richard could not trust his voice, but Mr. Wilmot offered the special thanksgiving.

Harry was, indeed, "at home," and his tears fell fast over his book, as he heard his father's "Amen," so fervent and so deep; and he gazed up and around, with fond and earnest looks, as thoughts and resolutions, formed there of old, came gathering thick upon him. And there little Gertrude seemed first to accept him. She whispered to her papa, as they stood up to go away, that it was very good in God Almighty to have sent Harry home; and, as they left the cloister, she slipped into Harry's hand a daisy from the grave, such a gift as she had never carried to any one else, save her father and Margaret, and she shrank no longer from being lifted up in his arms, and carried home through the twilight street.

He hurried into the drawing-room, and was heard declaring that all was right, for Margaret was on the sofa; but he stopped short, grieved at her altered looks. She smiled as he stooped to kiss her, and then made him stand erect, and measure himself against Norman, whose height he had almost reached. The little curly midshipman had come back, as nurse said, "a fine-growed young man," his rosy cheeks, brown and ruddy, and his countenance--

"You are much more like papa and Norman than I thought you would be,"

said Margaret.

"He has left his snub nose and yellow locks behind," said his father; "though the shaggy mane seems to remain. I believe lions grow darker with age. So there stand June and July together again!"

Dr. May walked backwards to look at them. It was good to see his face.

"I shall see Flora and Tom to-morrow!" said Harry, after nodding with satisfaction, as they all took their wonted places.

"Going!" exclaimed Richard.

"Why, don't you know?" said Ethel; "it is current in the nursery that he is going to be tried by court-martial for living with the King of the Cannibal Islands."

"Aubrey says he had a desert island, with Jennings for his man Friday,"

said Blanche.

"Harry," said little Gertrude, who had established herself on his knee, "did you really poke out the giant's eye with the top of a fir-tree?"

"Who told you so, Daisy?" was the general cry; but she became shy, and would not answer more than by a whisper about Aubrey, who indignantly declared that he never said so, only Gertrude was so foolish that she did not know Harry from Ulysses.

"After all," said Ethel, "I don't think our notions are much more defined. Papa and Norman may know more, but we have heard almost nothing. I have been waiting to hear more to close up my letters to Flora and Tom. What a shame that has not been done!"

"I'll finish," said Mary, running to the side-table.

"And tell her I'll be there to-morrow," said Harry. "I must report myself; and what fun to see Flora a member of Parliament! Come with me, June; I'll be back next day. I wish you all would come."

"Yes, I must come with you," said Norman. "I shall have to go to Oxford on Thursday;" and very reluctant he looked. "Tell Flora I am coming, Mary."

"How did you know that Flora was a married lady?" asked Blanche, in her would-be grown-up manner.

"I heard that from Aunt Flora. A famous lot of news I picked up there!"

"Aunt Flora!"

"Did you not know he had been at Auckland?" said Dr. May. "Aunt Flora had to nurse him well after all he had undergone. Did you not think her very like mamma, Harry?"

"Mamma never looked half so old!" cried Harry indignantly.

"Flora was five years younger!"

"She has got her voice and way with her," said Harry; "but you will soon see. She is coming home soon."

There was a great outcry of delight.

"Yes, there is some money of Uncle Arnott's that must be looked after, but he does not like the voyage, and can't leave his office, so perhaps Aunt Flora may come alone. She had a great mind to come with me, but there was no good berth for her in this schooner, and I could not wait for another chance. I can't think what possessed the letters not to come! She would not write by the first packet, because I was so ill, but we both wrote by the next, and I made sure you had them, or I would have written before I came."

The words were not out of his mouth before the second post was brought in, and there were two letters from New Zealand! What would they not have been yesterday? Harry would have burned his own, but the long closely-written sheets were eagerly seized, as, affording the best hope of understanding his adventures, as it had been written at intervals from Auckland, and the papers, passing from one to the other, formed the text for interrogations on further details, though much more was gleaned incidentally in tete-a-tetes, by Margaret, Norman, or his father, and no one person ever heard the whole connectedly from Harry himself.

"What was the first you knew of the fire, Harry?" asked Dr. May, looking up from the letter.

"Owen shaking me awake; and I thought it was a hoax," said Harry. "But it was true enough, and when we got on deck, there were clouds of smoke coming up the main hatch-way."

Margaret's eyes were upon him, and her lips formed the question, "And he?"

"He met us, and told us to be steady--but there was little need for that! Every man there was as cool and collected as if it had been no more than the cook's stove--and we should have scorned to be otherwise!

He put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Keep by me,' and I did."

"Then there was never much hope of extinguishing the fire?"

"No; if you looked down below the forecastle it was like a furnace, and though the pumps were at work, it was only to gain time while the boats were lowered. The first lieutenant told off the men, and they went down the side without one word, only shaking hands with those that were left."

"Oh, Harry! what were you thinking of?" cried Blanche.

"Of the powder," said Harry.

Ethel thought there was more in that answer than met the ear, and that Harry, at least, had thought of the powder to-night at church.

"Mr. Ernescliffe had the command of the second cutter. He asked to take me with him; I was glad enough; and Owen--he is mate, you know--went with us."

As to telling how he felt when he saw the good ship Alcestis blown to fragments, that was past Harry, and all but Blanche were wise enough not to ask. She had by way of answer, "Very glad to be safe out of her."

Nor was Harry willing to dwell on the subsequent days, when the unclouded sun had been a cruel foe; and the insufficient stores of food and water did, indeed, sustain life, but a life of extreme suffering.

What he told was of the kindness that strove to save him, as the youngest, from all that could be spared him. "If I dropped asleep at the bottom of the boat, I was sure to find some one shading me from the sun.

If there was an extra drop of water, they wanted me to have it."

"Tell me their names, Harry!" cried Dr. May. "If ever I meet one of them--"