come and bowl for us," said Harry.

"Bravo!" cried the others. "Oh do, Uncle oh do, Papa!"

But Uncle and Papa, though always ready to do anything to please his
boys, seemed to think that bowling all day long, with the thermometer
marking some few degrees above summer heat, was rather too arduous a
task, so he declined, and said--

"Now, I think it comes to my turn to choose, and I'll tell you what I
think; and that is, as several of the specimens in the butterfly cabinet
are getting destroyed by the mites, we might take the nets and boxes,
and have a very pleasant ramble by the side of Beechy Wood, and down the
meadows, and then, if we happened to get so far, we could call and thank
Mrs Benson again; and coming back to a late tea, we should find plenty
of moths along by the wood-side."

"That's the best idea yet," said the boys; although it is most probable
that they would have agreed to anything that Mr Inglis had proposed,
and said it was the best idea that could have been thought of.

But this arrangement only provided for the afternoon: there was still
the morning to be employed.

"If I were you, boys," said Mrs Inglis, "I should find something quiet
to do indoors, and then you will not be tired before you start in the
afternoon."

"Ah," said the Squire, "have a look at your lessons. You have not
touched them all through the holidays."

"Oh-h-h--Ah-h-h--Er-r-r--Um-m-m," groaned the boys. "Oh, Pa; oh-h-h,"
they exclaimed, with such pitiful faces that any one might have thought
that they had been required to quaff, each of them, a great goblet of
salts and senna, or something equally nasty.

Mr and Mrs Inglis both laughed heartily, and the boys then saw that
Papa was only joking, and the clouds disappeared from their faces
_instanter_; and off they scampered into the garden to spend the morning
quietly, so as not to be tired at the time appointed for starting.

"Come on, boys," said Harry, taking flying leaps over all the
flower-beds in the parterre, as they went down the garden--greatly to
the disgust of old Sam, who very reasonably said, "As flower-gardens
warn't made to be jumped over;" and he then took off his old battered
hat, and scratched his bald head viciously.

"Shouldn't I like to kick old Sam's hat!" said Philip; "he always will
wear such an old scarecrow of a thing."

"I say, Sam," said Harry, grinning, "we are going to stop quietly in the
garden all the morning and help you."

Sam gri