'Oh! very good to-day; I've been following you in thought all the time. You see, Bobby, I have to lie here on my back, and my truant and wanderer go out to seek adventures, and come back and amuse me by telling me all they have seen and heard. Then I mend them up, and send them out again, and that's how we spend our life.'
'Motherums hasn't always lived on her back,' put in True eagerly. 'She used to gallop everywhere on a lov-elly black horse till she got her fall. That was a dre'fful day!'
'So "dre'fful" that we will never talk of it,' said Mrs. Allonby quickly. 'Now, True, darling, take Bobby to Margot, and she will get a comfy bed for him in dad's dressing-room. And when he is quite tucked up in it he shall have a basin of bread and milk and go fast asleep till to-morrow morning, for I'm sure it is long past his proper bedtime.'
Bobby looked longingly towards the table, and Mrs. Allonby noted it.
'That is for father only; he is going to have some hot meat directly; but I think he can spare you six strawberries. True, you can have six too. Bring a plate over here and eat them together.'
So the two children sat down on the rug together, and Bobby felt he would like to stay there all night. But a little later, when he was going upstairs to bed, he felt very sleepy, and his head had not been upon his pillow for five minutes before he was fast asleep.
He was wakened the next morning by True's voice.
'Oh, do wake up! We've had breakfast already. And oh! you funny boy, you've got your walking-stick in bed with you.'
Bobby resented her tone.
'It isn't a stick, it's Nobbles,' he said. 'Me and Nobbles always sleep together.'