he party, had stopped and turned. Brandon was surprised to see
how earnestly the two elder children, while he talked, had been looking
at him, and then at their father and Valentine. At last, when this pause
occurred, and the two groups met, Janie said--

"I am sure papa is a great deal prettier than Mr. Brandon, and Cousin
Val looks quite ugly beside him."

"Yes, Janie," said Bertram, with an air of high satisfaction, "papa's
much more beautiful than either of the others. I shall ask Miss
Crampton when I go in if she doesn't think so. You would like to know
what she thinks, wouldn't you, father?"

John had opened his mouth to say no, when his better sense coming to his
aid, he forbore to speak. For this lady taught his children to
perfection, but his friends always would insist that she wanted to teach
him too--something that he wouldn't learn.

Aunt Christie, his constant friend and champion, presently spoke for
him.

"No, children," she said, as soon as she had composed her voice to a due
gravity, "it's natural ye should admire your father, good children
generally do, but, now, if I were you, I would never tell anybody at
all, not even Miss Crampton--do ye hear me, all of you? I would never
tell anybody your opinion of him. If ye do, they will certainly think ye
highly conceited, for ye know quite well that people say you four little
ones are just as exactly like him as ye can be."

The children were evidently impressed.

"In fact," said Valentine, "now I take a good look at him, I should say
that you are even more like him than he is himself--but--I may be
mistaken."

"I won't say it then," said Bertram, now quite convinced.

"And I won't, and I won't," added others, as they ran forward to open a
grate.

"Cheer up, John," said St. George, "let us not see so much beauty and
virtue cast down. There's Miss Crampton looking out of the school-room
window."

But though he laughed he did not deceive John Mortimer, who knew as well
as possible that the loss of Dorothea Graham pressed heavily on his
heart.

"You two are going to dine with me, of course," he said, when all the
party had passed into the wilderness beyond his garden.

"On the contrary, with your leave," answered Valentine, "we are going
to take a lesson of Swan in the art of budding roses. We cannot manage
it to our minds. We dined early."

"And I suppose you will agree with Val," observed Brandon, "that a
rose-garden is one of the necessarie