“Where?”
“At Donnington.”
“We shall want the cart and horse.”
“Ask father.”
“No. You ask him—you know I always stammer so when I ask.”
The speakers were two dark, straight-featured little boys of ten and twelve, and the above conversation was carried on in eager whispers, for they were not alone in the room.
It was rather dark, for the lamp had not been lighted yet, but they could see the back of the vicar’s head as he sat in his arm-chair by the fire, and they knew from the look of it that he was absorbed in thought; he had been reading earnestly as long as it was light enough, and scarcely knew that the boys were in the room.
“You ask,” repeated Roger, the elder boy, “I always stammer so.”
Little Gabriel clasped his hands nervously, and his deep-set eyes gazed apprehensively at the back of his father’s head.
“I don’t like to,” he murmured.