and indolence, ever
after. That's a pretty poetical little romance, and serves to cheer the
children, and make their sudden change of circumstance more bearable,
but I know they will have to fight the battle of life each by himself,
and quite unaided. Neither possesses a magic wand to conjure up a
fortune."

"And why not, pray? Has not many a London 'prentice lad found that magic
wand in honest hard work and strict integrity? Why not Bertie Rivers as
well as another? But let it be as you say: leave it to the boys' own
choice. Suppose we go out and find them."

Mr. Clair went very willingly, and seemed as if he would be glad to have
the whole matter settled. Aunt Amy smiled encouragingly; she was really
anxious that the young cousins should know and love each other, and felt
almost sure that Eddie would be much happier if he had some friends of
his own age, especially if they were clever boys, who would make him
feel anxious to shine in their eyes, and excel at least in his beloved
painting, and that he talked so much of and performed so little.

Mr. Murray and Mr. Clair had not joined the children on the beach many
minutes before Uncle Gregory came along with his two sons, one walking
demurely on either side. When they came to the little group sitting and
lounging in somewhat undignified fashion under the lee of the old tarry
boat, they paused, Mr. Gregory looking somewhat astonished and
scandalised at seeing his old friend Mr. Murray--Murray and Co., one of
the most respected "houses" in the City of London--sprawling
full-length, with his hat over his eyes, while Mr. Clair made an
accurate two-inch sketch of him; but no matter what Mr. Murray did or
said, he was in a sense privileged, and Mr. Gregory greeted him
cordially, shook hands with Mr. Clair a little more stiffly, and
introduced his sons. Bertie, at the first approach of his uncle Gregory,
had edged to the other side of the boat, and watched the proceedings
with an amused twinkle in his eyes, that peered about half an inch over
the keel. Eddie was gravely polite, Agnes painfully shy, and Uncle Clair
seemed to have become quite a grand gentleman too in a moment; but Mr.
Murray never moved, and actually asked Mr. Gregory to sit down,
pointing to a vacant scrap of pebbly beach, and indicating the tarry
boat as something to lean against. At the proposition Bertie disappeared
altogether: it was too absurd to see Uncle Gregory's expression of
wonder, and he had t