'I am afraid you are too careless, my boy, to be trusted with a gun yet, for the sake of others as well as your own. I do not say that you are not old enough. Many boys younger than you have carried guns.'

Geoffry felt vexed, and presently he said,—

'I wish I could be more careful.'

'You could, if you chose, Geoff,' said his father. Every one of us has natural faults of character, which God intends us to fight against. If it were not so, life would be very easy.'

'But I can't remember, father.'

"You have never tried, my son. It may seem to you as if I made a great deal of your fault of forgetfulness; but it is one of the most dangerous faults, and it is a very selfish one.'

Geoffry did not like this; he had never thought himself selfish; he looked upon selfish people as something very horrible, and he said, after a time,—

'Not selfish, father! I am sure I am not selfish.' 'Are not you, Geoffry?' said Mr. Lisle. Think a minute. Is it not selfish to forget the comfort of others, and tease and annoy others so often as you do?'

'I don't do it on purpose, papa. I don't forget on purpose,' said Geoffry, with the tears in his eyes.

'But you do not try to avoid doing it. You have. no sooner promised to remember than you forget the promise. It is quite a mistake, my boy, to think that you cannot remember. People with worse memories

than you have, have been taught; but, unhappily, my dear child, they have been very painfully taught.'

Perhaps Mr. Lisle was thinking of something painful, or perhaps he feared pain for Geoffry, for he stopped speaking and gave a great sigh. Geoffry walked on silently for a time, when his father said, 'By-the-bye, did you put my sherry-flask in your pocket, as I told you?'

It was very galling to Geoffry to have to say just immediately after what his father had said, 'No, I forgot it;' and no sooner had he said the words than he turned and set off running towards home.

His father stood waiting for him, and presently a gentleman joined him.

'Fine boy that of yours!' said the gentleman, looking after Geoffry. 'I never see him without admiring his frank, honest face. He looks like a boy who would never tell a lie.'

'He never told a lie in his life, I fully believe,' said Mr. Lisle.

'Ah, well, so long as a boy can be trusted, he'll do. Mr. Lisle thought of how little to be trusted Geoffry was, not because of his want of honesty, but his want of thought; but he was not going to say that to a stranger; and shortly afterwards Geoffry rejoined them, very breathless from his run: and dropped the sherryflask into his father's pocket, having on his way left the garden-gate wide open.

It was a fine time for the pigs, who no sooner saw the open gate than they scurried, grunting with joy, into Mr. Lisle's favourite carrot-bed. There they tore up many of the carrots, bit them in half and spit them out again; for, being pigs, and seeing abundance around them, they wasted more than they ate. Next they entangled themselves in the rows of peas; and struggled through them, and tore them down. Then they sucked all the apples and pears within their reach, and bit pieces out of the young vegetable marrows. Afterwards, being unable to eat more, they ran all over the borders and did as much mischief as they could; and then went into the flower-garden to do the same, when at that moment little Archie caught sight of them and ran in-doors crying,' Pigsh ish in garden.'

The cook and the housemaid, the stableman, the page-boy, and the gardener all at once gave chase, while Archie followed at a distance with the nurse to see the show. The pigs seeing such a number of people running after them thought they would give them a good run while they were about it, so that these five people, joined by Walter and nurse and Archie, tore and rushed backwards and forwards over the garden for about threequarters of an hour, doing twice as much damage, and causing the pigs to do three times as much as they would otherwise have done. When the pigs, with a last kick up of their hind legs, cantered grunting into the field again, everybody stood still, and the gardener said,—

'Bother they pigs!'

'My gracious! here's nice work in the garden,' said Anne the housemaid.

'What ever will Master say?' said cook.

At that moment their mistress, who had just come in from a walk, joined them.

'Who left the gate open?' she asked.

Nobody seemed to know,

Then Mrs. Lisle asked Walter, 'Where is Geoffry?' Geoffry was always the first person thought of when any mischief was discovered.

'He is gone out with papa,' said Walter.

Cook looked quickly at Anne, and then hurried into the house. Geoffry had passed through the kitchen. on his way out with his father's sherry-flask. He had said something funny to cook as he went by; and cook had said to Anne after he was gone, 'That's my boy! bless him!' She felt sure now that Geoffry had left the gate open, but she was not going to tell of him; so Mrs. Lisle concluded that some one of the servants had disobeyed their orders, and they were afraid of acknowledging it, and she felt very uncomfortable until her husband came home.

CHAPTER III.

GEOFFRY IS PUNISHED.

HEN Mr. Lisle and Geoffry came home, in high spirits-because they had, or rather Mr.

Lisle had, shot a brace of birds and three rabbits-they both stopped still when they came to the garden; Mr. Lisle in horror at the mischief which had been done, and Geoffry with a most uncomfortable feeling that he had again done wrong. Had they come an hour before, Mr. Lisle would have been more horrified, for old Crabbe the gardener had been busy tidying up, as he called it, ever since the pigs had been turned out. Still, though he had set to work at once, yet his temper was very much hurt by having so much extra to do.

'Why,' said Mr. Lisle, 'who ever has pulled up the geraniums in that way ?—and why, Crabbe! just look at that bed of heliotrope!'

Crabbe only gave a grunt-he felt too cross to answer.