"Papa, I didn't, I really didn't think about its being disobedience when I got into the boat, because it didn't seem dangerous till we were fairly out among the waves."
"Do you think I ought to excuse you on that account?"
"No, sir; you've reproved me so often for not thinking, and for not being careful to obey your orders; and I know I deserve a flogging. But, O papa, please don't let Mamma Vi know about it, or anybody else. Can't you take me upstairs here when they are all in the other house?"
"I shall not use corporal punishment this time, Max," the captain said, in a moved tone. Dressing the boy closer to his side, "I shall try free forgiveness, for I think you are truly sorry. And then you have made so frank and full a confession of wrong-doing, that I might perhaps never have discovered in any other way."
"O papa, how good you are to me! I don't think I can ever be so mean and ungrateful as to disobey you again," exclaimed Max, feelingly. "But I don't deserve to be praised, or let off from punishment, because of confessing, for I shouldn't have done it if Grandma Elsie hadn't talked to me about the duty of it, and persuaded me to take courage to do it because it was right."
"Bless her for it! the dear, good woman!" the captain said, with earnest gratitude. "But I think, Max, you do deserve commendation for taking her advice. I have something more to say to you, my son, but not now, for the call to dinner will come directly, and I must go and prepare for it."
There was a hearty embrace between them, and they separated, the captain going to his room to make his toilet and Max to the other house, where he soon managed to let Grandma Elsie into the secret of his confession and its happy result, thanking her with tears in his eyes for her kind, wise advice.
Elsie rejoiced with and for him, telling him he had made her heart glad and that she hoped he would always have courage to do right.
As Max prepared for bed that night he was wondering to himself what more his father had to say to him, when he heard the captain's step on the stairs, and the next moment he came in.
Max started a little apprehensively. Could it be that his father had changed his mind, and was about to give him the dreaded flogging after all?