'Boiled to rags, like the policeman in the Area Belle,' said John, trying to laugh him into reassurance. 'Did you expect the process to have the same effect as on a pudding?'
'But my father said he was not altered!' said William, turning to his sister-in-law.
'He has gone through a good deal since then,' said Wilmet, wistfully. 'And the sun-burning has had time to fade. If you had seen him before we came into this mountain air, you would only wonder at him now.'
'Besides,' added John, 'you are grateful to a man for looking anyhow at all when he lies like a mummy. And now he is dressed like his fellow-creatures, you compare him with them.'
'And that is only since we have been here,' said Wilmet, proudly.
'And how are they all at home, Bill? How's the mother?'
'Oh, all right; and she kindly insisted on my taking out some Liebnitz to you in case you couldn't get anything in these French places. She fairly took me in this time, and I suggested it was rather tough for you under present circumstances, but she said that couldn't be, for she got it warranted in tins at the competitive.'
'Dear mother!' said John, as they all shrieked with amusement; 'I don't think Wilmet will be at all ungrateful to her. I am afraid the commissariat is a weight on her mind. Now, what do you think of her looks?' demanded John, rather anxiously.
'Well, she is always—just Wilmet—but she is thinner, and not so pink as she used to be,' said the uncomplimentary Will.
'Of course,' said Wilmet, as John's eyes turned on her the more solicitously, 'after the heat of those last weeks in Egypt; and Malta was almost worse, except that there was not the constant warfare with the flies that just kept one alive.'