Then he moved his left leg,

Then he said, “I pardon beg,”

And sat upon his seat.

“Oh! uncle David! uncle David!” cried Laura, when they arrived from Holiday House, “I would jump out of the carriage window with joy to see you again; only the persons passing in the street might be surprised!”

“Not at all! They are quite accustomed to see people jumping out of the windows with joy, whenever I appear.”

“We have so much to tell you,” exclaimed Harry and Laura, each seizing hold of a hand, “we hardly know where to begin!”

“Ladies and gentlemen! If you both talk at once, I must get a new pair of ears! So you have not been particularly miserable at Holiday House?”

“No! no! uncle David! we did not think there had been so much happiness in the world,” answered Laura, eagerly. “The last two days we could do nothing but play and laugh, and”——

“And grow fat! Why! you both look so well fed, you are just fit for killing! I shall be obliged to shut you up two or three days, without anything to eat, as is done to pet lap-dogs, when they are getting corpulent and gouty.”

[119]
]“Then we shall be like bears living on our paws,” replied Harry, “and uncle David! I would rather do that, than be a glutton like Peter Grey. He went to a cheap shop lately, where old cheese-cakes were sold at half-price, and greedily devoured nearly a dozen, thinking that the dead flies scattered on the top were currants, till Frank shewed him his mistake!”