The boys, perhaps excepting Ralph and Piers, were invariably more turbulent on Sunday than any other day of the week. There was an attempt made by their mother to enforce discipline on Sunday, from the same reason which made her scrupulous in attending church regularly. Besides, the boys' best Sunday jackets and long tight trousers were in peril, if their usual habits of tree-climbing and birds' egg hunting were not laid aside with their week-day garments.
The large Sunday dinner at one o'clock was always lengthened out to its utmost limit, but when that was over, the time hung heavy on hand.
A smart box on Bunny's ear, administered by Melville, with a hand on which a huge ring glistened, and which left a pretty deep triangular cut on the boy's ear, roused Piers' indignation.
"You coward," he said; "just because he trod on your smart shoe. I would not wear such a shoe for a hundred pounds."
"You are not very likely to be tried," was Melville's rejoinder. "Your feet are not made for shoes with buckles."
"Oh! Melville," Joyce exclaimed, "how can you be so unkind?" while his father said, in a stern voice, "If you have no brains, sir, I always thought you had a heart."
Mrs. Falconer was rising to follow Bunny, whose loud crying was heard in the hall; but Joyce said:
"Mother, let me go. I had better take all the boys away, mother, and amuse them, if I can. I don't think Bunny need cry like that, though it was too bad to hit him."
"It was indeed," Gilbert Arundel could not help exclaiming fervently, though like all guests in a house, when family disputes are going on, he felt it difficult to know whether to speak or be silent.
"I hate Melville," Piers said fiercely, as he swung himself out of the room after his sister.
Joyce soon persuaded Bunny that he was not much hurt, and said if they would all come up to the seat under the fir-tree she would read to them. The boys willingly consented, and Joyce ran upstairs and fetched the pretty Bible, bound in purple, with its gilt leaves, which she displayed to her admiring brothers.
"But you are not going to read _that_, Joyce," Piers said. "Isn't it dull? Can't you find the Pilgrim's Progress?"
"Yes," exclaimed Harry; "I like the Giant Despair part, and the history of all the bones and skulls lying about."