“She’ll get pneumonia in those wet clothes,” he said; “we must hurry home faster. Come, Baby, brother’ll carry you.”
“Do, p’ease,” she said; “I’se so tired an’ wet.”
A chubby five-year-old is no light burden for a boy, but King picked up his little sister, and trudged on faster.
“Oh, King!” said Marjorie, hurrying her steps to keep up with him, “I’ve just thought of it! The Mortimers will be there when we get home!”
“I’ve thought of it all along,” said King, with a gloomy shake of his head. “I don’t know what’ll happen, Mops; but we’ve got to brave it out now.”
“But how can we? What will Miss Larkin say?”
“You ought to have thought of that sooner,” said Kitty. “I did. I thought of her first thing. But you two didn’t ask my advice.”
Poor Kitty couldn’t help this little fling. Often her judgment was better than theirs, but being older, King and Marjorie never asked her opinion until it was too late.
“And think how we look!” wailed Marjorie, her mind going ahead, as they neared home.
“I’ve been thinking of it,” said King, grimly, as he shifted the baby to his other arm. “I say, Mops, we’re in no end of a mess, and I don’t know what we’re up against. But there’s one comfort; it isn’t mischief, and we haven’t done anything wrong.”