“SIDNEY, come here, sir! What have you been at? you have torn your frill into tatters! How did you do this? Come sir, no lies.”
“Indeed, ma’am, it was not my fault. I just put my head out of the window to see the coach go by, and a nail caught me here.”
“Why, you little plague! you have scratched yourself—you are always in mischief. What business had you to look after the coach?”
“I don’t know,” said Sidney, hanging his head ruefully. “La, mother!” cried the youngest of the cousins, a square-built, ruddy, coarse-featured urchin, about Sidney’s age, “La, mother, he never see a coach in the street when we are at play but he runs arter it.”
“After, not arter,” said Mr. Roger Morton, taking the pipe from his mouth.
“Why do you go after the coaches, Sidney?” said Mrs. Morton; “it is very naughty; you will be run over some day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Sidney, who during the whole colloquy had been trembling from head to foot.
“‘Yes ma’am,’ and ‘no, ma’am:’ you have no more manners than a cobbler’s boy.”
“Don’t tease the child, my dear; he is crying,” said Mr. Morton, more authoritatively than usual. “Come here, my man!” and the worthy uncle took him in his lap and held his glass of brandy-and-water to his lips; Sidney, too frightened to refuse, sipped hurriedly, keeping his large eyes fixed on his aunt, as children do when they fear a cuff.
“You spoil the boy more than do your own flesh and blood,” said Mrs. Morton, greatly displeased.