“And so it was Ambrose who went back, eh?” he said, stroking Dickie’s round head as she sat on his knee.
“Yes, father,” said Pennie, very much out of breath with running and talking, “we were all frightened except Ambrose.”
“And why weren’t you frightened, Ambrose?”
“I was,” murmured Ambrose.
“And yet you went?”
“Yes. Because of Dickie.”
“Then you were a brave boy.”
“A brave boy, a brave boy,” repeated Dickie in a sort of sing-song, pulling her father’s whiskers.
“Now I want you children to tell me,” pursued the vicar, looking round at the hot little eager faces, “which would have been braver—not to be frightened at all, or to go in spite of being frightened?”
“Not to be frightened at all,” answered Nancy promptly.