“No, sir; you’ve reproved me so often for not thinking, and for not being careful to obey your orders; and I know I deserve a flogging.  But, O papa, please don’t let Mamma Vi know about it, or anybody else.  Can’t you take me upstairs here when they are all in the other house?”

“I shall not use corporal punishment this time, Max,” the captain said, in a moved tone.  Dressing the boy closer to his side, “I shall try free forgiveness, for I think you are truly sorry.  And then you have made so frank and full a confession of wrong-doing, that I might perhaps never have discovered in any other way.”

“O papa, how good you are to me!  I don’t think I can ever be so mean and ungrateful as to disobey you again,” exclaimed Max, feelingly.  “But I don’t deserve to be praised, or let off from punishment, because of confessing, for I shouldn’t have done it if Grandma Elsie hadn’t talked to me about the duty of it, and persuaded me to take courage to do it because it was right.”

“Bless her for it! the dear, good woman!” the captain said, with earnest gratitude.  “But I think, Max, you do deserve commendation for taking her advice.  I have something more to say to you, my son, but not now, for the call to dinner will come directly, and I must go and prepare for it.”

There was a hearty embrace between them, and they separated, the captain going to his room to make his toilet and Max to the other house, where he soon managed to let Grandma Elsie into the secret of his confession and its happy result, thanking her with tears in his eyes for her kind, wise advice.

Elsie rejoiced with and for him, telling him he had made her heart glad and that she hoped he would always have courage to do right.

As Max prepared for bed that night he was wondering to himself what more his father had to say to him, when he heard the captain’s step on the stairs, and the next moment he came in.

Max started a little apprehensively.  Could it be that his father had changed his mind, and was about to give him the dreaded flogging after all?

But with one glance up into the grave yet kindly face looking down at him, all his fear vanished.  He drew a long breath of relief.

“My boy,” the captain said, laying his hand on Max’s shoulder, “I told you I had something more to say to you, and I have come to say it now.  You are ‘my first-born, my might and the beginning of my strength.’  Never until you are a father yourself can you know or understand the tide of love, joy, and thankfulness that swept over me at the news of your birth.  Nor do you know how often, on land and on sea, in storm and in calm, my thoughts dwell with deep anxiety upon the future of my son, not only for time, Max, but for eternity.”

The captain paused for a moment, his emotions seemingly too big for utterance, and Max, throwing his arms around his neck, hid his face on his breast.

“Papa,” he sobbed, “I didn’t know you loved me so much!  Oh, I wish I’d always been a good boy!”