"Grandfather!" exclaimed the child, holding up her work with an
imploring look, "be those stitches too long? If you say so,
grandfather, I will take them all out, because you know."
"They will do very nicely indeed, Conny," replied the old man, with an
approving smile; "and as for you, Master Walter, I wish that your work
was always done as well as your sister's. Bless her! how like her mother
she is!"
"I wish I was like my mother too," said Walter, "for then you would love
me."
"Boys and girl, I love you all, and thank God that, in these bad times,
you are as good as you are! But, Watty, you must never think of the sea;
you were not intended for a sailor, or you would not talk of wind
getting into the stitchings of a topsail, and throwing the ship on her
beam-ends--ha, ha!"
The proud boy turned blushingly away, and began playing with, or rather
teazing, a very old nondescript dog, who was lying comfortably coiled up
on the youngest lad's pinafore, under shelter of the grey stone which
the grandfather used as his seat.
"Wat will be a soldier," said the second boy, whose name was Hugh; "his
godpapa, Sir Walter, says he shall. But you will teach me to be a sailor
before you die, and then I may live to be as great as the great man you
and father talk about, the brave Blake. Oh! how proud I should be if you
could live to see that day," he continued, his bright eyes dancing at
the anticipation of future glory. "And you may, dear grandfather, for
mother says that Crisp is older now for a dog than you are for a man.
Watty, you had better not teaze Crisp, for he has three teeth left."
"Three!" interrupted little Con, whose fine name of Constantia had been
diminished to the familiar appellation--"three! he has four and a half
and a little piece, for I opened his mout and counted them myself."
"When do you mean to speak plain, and be a lady, Miss Con?"
The child looked into her brother's face, and laughed a gleesome laugh,
one of those burstings of a joyous heart that come, we know not how, but
never come after the dancing pulse of youth changes into a measured
time, when we look upon the dial's hand, and note that hours are
passing.
"Grandfather," said Hugh, when the mast was fairly established, and the
rigging properly arranged, "may I call my vessel the 'Firefly?'"