"I declare I never thought once of looking out of the window to see if it were still wet.

Did you, Bob ?" "No," he answered, "I was too busy helping you, Nell." "Ah, my dearies," interposed Mrs Gilmour, taking advantage of the opportunity to point a moral, "you see what it is not to be idle and having something to do! If you had not both been so engrossed with your task, you, Master Bob, would have been `Oh-ing' all over the house and going to each window in turn to see if the rain had stopped, looking like a bear with a sore head; while you, Miss Nell, would probably have shed as many tears as would have floated a jolly-boat, as Captain Dresser would say in his sailor language!" "Oh, auntie!" exclaimed Bob impetuously, "I never say `Oh' like that, do I ?" "Sure you've answered the question yourself!" replied Mrs Gilmour, speaking in her racy brogue.

"That's just what I should have had to listen to all the morning but for my thinking of that album, which I'm glad has amused you both, my dears, so well.

Ah, children, children, there's nothing like having something to do.

I'll tell you something one of the poets, Cowper I think, has written about this in his homely verse:-- "`An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless as it goes as when it stands!' "What d'you think of that, me dears, for an illustration of a person without occupation for mind or body--does the cap fit anybody here, eh ?" Bob was silent; but Nellie took the lesson to heart.
"Yes, auntie, I know it's true enough," she replied.