Misunderstood

"Qu'est-ce que c'est donc!" exclaimed Virginie, startled by Humphrey's jump from the window-sill to the floor.

"C'est mon père," was all the information he vouchsafed her, as he rushed out of the room.

"M. votre père! Attendez done que je vous arrange un peu les cheveux."

She spoke to the winds: nothing was heard of Humphrey but sundry bumps and jumps in the distance, which told of his rapid descent down the stairs.

The more tardy Miles was caught and brushed, in spite of his struggles, and then he was off to join his brother.

He reached the hall door just as the carriage drove up, and the two little figures jumped and capered about, while a tall, dark gentleman divested himself of his mackintosh and umbrella, and then came up the steps into the house.

He stooped down to kiss the eager faces. "Well, my little fellows, and how are you both? No bones broken since last week? No new bruises and bumps, eh?"

They were so taken up with their father, that they did not perceive that he was not alone, but that another gentleman had got out of the dog-cart, till Sir Everard said—

"Now go and shake hands with that gentleman. I wonder if you know who he is?"

Humphrey looked up into the young man's face, and said, while his color deepened—

"I think you are my Uncle Charlie, who came to see us once a long time ago before you went to sea, and before–"

"Quite right," said Sir Everard, shortly; "I did not think you would have remembered him. I daresay, Charlie, Humphrey has not altered very much; but this little fellow was quite a baby when you went away," he added, taking Miles up in his arms, and looking at his brother-in-law for admiration.

"What a likeness!" exclaimed Uncle Charlie.

Sir Everard put the child down with a sigh.

"Like in more ways than one, I am afraid. Look here," pointing to the delicate tracery of the blue veins on the forehead, and the flush on the fair cheek.

Humphrey had been listening intently to this conversation, and his father being once more occupied with kissing Miles, he advanced to his uncle, and put his hand confidingly in his.

"You are a nice little man," said Uncle Charlie, laying his other hand on the curly head; "we were always good friends, Humphrey. But," he added, half to himself, as he turned up the bright face to his, and gazed at it intently for a moment, "you are not a bit like your mother."

The dressing-gong now sounded, and the little boys proceeded to their father's room, to help or hinder him with his toilette.

Miles devoted himself to the carpet-bag, in expectation of some tempting paper parcel; while Humphrey's attentions were given to first one and then the other of the articles he was extracting from the pocket of the coat Sir Everard had just thrown off.

A suspicious click made the baronet turn round.

"What have you got hold of, Humphrey?"

An open pocket-knife dropped from the boy's hand he had just succeeded in opening the two blades, and was in the act of trying the edges on his thumb nail.

Failing in that experiment, his restless fingers strayed to the dressing-table, and an ominous silence ensued.

"Humphrey," shouted his father, "put my razor down."

In the glass he had caught sight of a well-soaped face, and spoke just in time to stop the operation.

Punishment always follows sin, and Humphrey was dispatched to the nursery to have his face sponged and dried.

By taking a slide down the banisters, however, he made up for lost time, and arrived at the library-door at the same time as his father and brother.

Uncle Charlie was standing by the window, ready dressed; and the gong sounding at that moment, they all went in to dinner.

The two little brothers had a chair on each side of their father, and an occasional share in his food.

Dinner proceeded in silence. Uncle Charlie was enjoying his soup, and Sir Everard, dividing himself between his little boys and his meal.

"It's William's birthday to-day," said Humphrey, breaking silence.

The unfortunate individual in white silk stockings, thus suddenly brought into public notice, reddened to the roots of his hair; and in his confusion nearly dropped the dish he was in the act of putting down before his master.

"He's twenty-two years old to-day," continued Humphrey; "he told me so this morning."

Sir Everard tried to evince a proper amount of interest in so important an announcement.

"What o'clock were you born, William?" pursued Humphrey, addressing the shy young footman at the side-board, where he had retreated with the dish-cover, and from whence he was making all sorts of signs to his tormentor, in the vain hope of putting an end to the conversation.

Sir Everard hastily held out a bit of turbot on the end of his fork, and effectually stopped the boy's mouth for a few minutes; but no sooner had he swallowed it, than he broke out again.

"What are you going to give William for his birthday present, father?" he said, putting his arms on the table, and resting his chin upon them, that he might the more conveniently look up into his father's face, and await his answer.

Lower and lower bent Uncle Charlie's head over his plate, and his face became alarmingly suffused with color.

"I know what he'd like," finished Humphrey, "for he's told me!"

The unhappy footman snatched up a dish-cover, and began a retreat to the door; but the inexorable butler handed him the lobster sauce, and he was obliged to advance with it to his master's side.

"I said to him to-day," proceeded Humphrey, in all the conscious glory of being in William's confidence, "If father were to give you a birthday present, what would you like? You remember, don't you, William? And then he told me, didn't you, William?"

The direct form of attack was more than flesh and blood could stand. William made a rush to the door with the half-filled tray and, in spite of furious glances from the butler, disappeared, just as Uncle Charlie gave it up as a bad job, and burst out laughing.

"You must not talk quite so much at dinner, my boy," said Sir Everard, when the door was shut; "your uncle and I have not been able to say a word. I assure you," he added in an under tone to his brother-in-law, "these children keep me in constant hot water; I never know what they will say next."

When the servants reappeared the gentlemen, to William's relief, were talking politics; and Humphrey was devoting his energies to digging graves in the salt, and burying therein imaginary corpses, represented by pills he was forming from his father's bread.

"Will you come and help me with my dinner, next week, Charlie?" said Sir Everard; "I am going to entertain the aborigines, and I shall want a little assistance. It is now more than two years since I paid my constituents any attention, and I feel the time has come."

"What long words," said Humphrey, sotto voce, as he patted down the last salt grave, and stuck a bit of parsley, that had dropped from the fish, on the top of the mound. "Father," he went on, "what are abo—abo—"

"Aborigines?" finished Uncle Charlie. "Wild men of the woods, Humphrey; half human beings, half animals."

"And is father going to have them to dinner?" exclaimed Humphrey, in great astonishment.

"Yes," said Uncle Charlie, enjoying the joke; "it will be fine fun for you and Miles, won't it?"

"Oh, won't it!" echoed Humphrey, jumping down from his chair, and capering about. "Oh, father! will you promise, before you even ask Virginie, that we may come down to dinner that night, and see them?"