you want to see anything truly and beautifully you must generally go
to a poet.

Mrs. Carey held Peter, then a crowing baby, in her lap. Gilbert was
tickling Peter's chin with a buttercup, Nancy was putting a wreath of
leaves on her mother's hair, and Kathleen was swinging from an
apple-tree bough, her yellow curls flying.

"Might I inquire what you think of that?" asked the father.

"Well," the Admiral said, "mothers and children make a pretty good
picture at any time, but I should say this one couldn't be 'beat.' Two
for the Navy, eh?"

"All four for the Navy, perhaps," laughed the young man. "Nancy has
already chosen a Rear-Admiral and Kathleen a Commodore; they are modest
little girls!"

"They do you credit, Peter!"

"I hope I've given them something,--I've tried hard enough, but they are
mostly the work of the lady in the chair. Come on and say how d'ye do."

Before many Saturdays the Admiral's lap had superseded all other places
as a gathering ground for the little Careys, whom he called the
stormy petrels.

"Mother Carey," he explained to them, came from the Latin _mater cara_,
this being not only his personal conviction, but one that had the
backing of Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable."