"George, I'm so sorry for you! Don't you feel well?"
"I feel as if my head would split open. It aches as if someone were chopping wood inside of it."
"What makes you feel so?" asked Bess innocently. "Did you eat too much supper at the Bramleys'?"
Bess had never seen anyone drunk before, and when George was helped to bed the night before by his father and mother, she did not understand his condition. She had always adored her big brother. It was not strange she had no idea of his habits.
George looked at his sister curiously; then, under an impulse he could not explain, he drew her nearer to him and said:
"Bess, I'm a bad fellow. I was drunk last night! Drunk!—do you understand? And I've nearly killed mother!"
Bess was aghast at the confession. She put out her hand again.
"Oh, no, George!" Then with a swift revulsion of feeling she drew back and said: "How could you, with father feeling as he does?"
And little Bess, who was a creature of very impulsive emotions, sat down crying on what she supposed was a cushion, but which was George's tall hat, accidentally covered with one end of a comforter which had slipped off the bed. Bess was a very plump little creature, and as she picked herself up and held up the hat, George angrily exclaimed:
"You're always smashing my things!" But the next minute he was sorry for the words.