They built on happily for nearly an hour, Arthur cleverly weaving into his building a true history of a man named Black Tom, who was a bricklayer at the works. And he brought in for his little brother's benefit all the information he had himself picked up about building. Also how Black Tom's boy was employed on the scaffolding, and how he fell and was taken up very much hurt, and had to be conveyed to the hospital. So an hour quickly slipped away, and the children would soon be home.
"Will he ever be able to walk again, do you think?" asked Tom, when Arthur paused.
"I don't know about that; but one thing I can tell you, he has no mother or nurse like you, and lies now on his back in a little close room, with nothing to see and nothing to do."
"Does he? Where is he? Does he never go out?"
"Never; because papa goes to see him, and he told me so. And they have no easy perambulator like you, Tom, to lay him in. And he never gets sight of the park as you do, or of trees, or even shops, and looks all day long just upon the same old ceiling and ugly paper of his little dull room!"
Tom glanced round his pleasant nursery, and at the bricks which Arthur was replacing in their box.
"I never thought of that," he said, and sighed deeply.
"We have brought you some of our sweets, Tom," said Dolly, running in and holding out a little paper.
"Oh, thank you!" said Tom. "And I have been having such a nice play with Arthur."
Nellie's little girls had quite recovered their spirits when they came to the schoolroom, and their lessons were got through without any further difficulty.