'you promised me and mother t'other day you would give up going to sea till I give you leave; you know you did.'

George looked ashamed of himself as he muttered, 'That was along of Master Geoff; he told me as I was wrong.'

'And Master Geoff told you truth, George,' said Mrs. Clarke; and you should bide by what he said.'

'May be and I might,' said George; 'but what's the good when Master Geoff himself has been and run away from home; I don't see no good talking, I don't; and that's about it.'

What George meant to say by this was, that, if Geoffry had acted better, he would have minded his advice; but that, as Geoffry had been disobedient to his father, any words he might have used went for nothing.

So it always is; people may talk very well indeed, but if they do not act as they talk, they do much more harm than good. Geoffry's bad conduct influenced George Clarke to act badly also. We can never commit sin alone, some one is sure to follow our example. When Geoffry had advised George Clarke to obey his father's orders, George was very much inclined to do so. Now that Geoffry was wrong, George must needs follow suit, and be wrong too.

It seemed of no use after this for either Clarke or Mrs. Clarke to talk to George. He would have his own way and go to sea. He was not old enough to go on

board a training ship for the navy. Had he waited two years, Clarke would have let him go; so, failing that, the foolish boy went off to Liverpool, and entered himself on board a filthy collier, and in two days' time left England, just soon enough to have begun to be very sorry for what he had done, when it was too late to alter things, and just about the time that Geoffry, who had been the cause of his folly, was beginning to repent very heartily of the course he had taken.

Little Jemmy Clarke, who was only nine, and upon whom his brother George looked down, tried to supply his place to his father by pulling the boat round the shore early every morning, so as to look to the lobster pots and the traps, and although his little arms and legs were very short for pulling a great clumsy boat, he did it with such a will, that he managed pretty well. Which do you think was the best of the two, and the finest fellow? George, who thought himself so independent and so manly that he must needs take his own way? or little Jemmy, who tried his utmost to be a good boy to his father and mother, and did not think himself of any importance at all? I am quite sure in my own mind which was the better of the two, and I am quite sure which was the happier.

M

CHAPTER XVI.

GEOFFRY'S FATHER.

EANWHILE, at home, Mr. Lisle gradually recovered. So many things had taken place, and he had gone through so much feeling and thought and pain; that to Geoffry it seemed a long time since the unhappy day on which his thoughtlessness had been the cause of so much misery. Had he been told that it was but a week ago, I think he could not have believed it; and to the Lisles also it seemed a long time since all these things had happened. For the first day or two, Mrs. Lisle thought Geoffry would surely return, after his first fright at having shot his father was over. Then, as we know, the police were set to search for him; but at the same time David Collins found Geoffry's hat out at sea, and brought it to the house so that poor Mrs. Lisle felt as if she should never see her boy again, and sorrowed for him as if he were dead. When Mr. Lisle began to get

stronger, and his head was no longer delirious, he was constantly inquiring if the police had not brought any news, and he felt as if he could hardly lie there on his bed, but that he must get up and look for his boy himself. The doctor would not let him get up for several days of course. One day, after the bills had been sent out, a policeman called and said he thought he had some trace of Geoffry; for a woman in a town not very far off had noticed a boy who had come to buy bread and cheese at her shop. She had thought the boy looked strange and scared, and he was dressed as the hand-bills described him, and without a hat. But when the policeman asked further in the town, he could hear nothing more, and since then there had been no news.

It was just a week since the accident. Mr. Lisle had declared that he would not stop in bed any longer, but would get up with or without Dr. Murray's leave. Even papas do not always obey their doctors; so Mrs. Lisle helped him out of bed, and put on his dressing-gown and made him comfortable in an easy-chair. His face was covered with little sore places where the shots had been picked out; so that he looked rather as if he had had the small-pox; but the worst part of his face was his forehead, where he had cut himself in falling against the table. Dr. Murray had sewed up the great wound with pieces of silver wire, and the wires were still in, and the wound looked ghastly and half-healed.

Mrs. Lisle left her husband's room for a few minutes;

when she came back, he was gone, having dressed himself as soon as he was alone. She looked in every room in the house, but Mr. Lisle was nowhere to be found; she then searched the garden, and not finding him there, went to look for him about the place.

Mrs. Lisle thought that Dr. Murray would be very much vexed that Mr. Lisle should be so imprudent; so she never dreamt that he would let the doctor see him, and she did not go to look for him at the doctor's house, and yet that was the very place to which Mr. Lisle had gone.

Certainly Dr. Murray was very much surprised when his library door opened, and Mr. Lisle walked in looking like a thin ghost.

'Lisle! are you mad?' called out Dr. Murray, when he saw him.

'Not that I know,' said Mr. Lisle, sitting down; 'but I am horribly anxious about my boy; and I feel as if I should go mad if I lie still much longer thinking about him. I must do something myself."

'What can you do?' asked the doctor; 'you cannot travel; and I suppose you mean that you want to go and look for the boy. Depend upon it, he will turn up in a day or two-boys cannot be lost; the police will find him.'

Mr. Lisle said nothing.

'Under any circumstances,' said the doctor again, 'you cannot move about yet. I shall not allow you.'

G