Dysart grasps the little extended hand with avidity, and peace seems restored when Tommy puts an end to all things. To anyone acquainted with children I need hardly remark that he has been listening to the foregoing conversation with all his ears and all his eyes and every bit of his puzzled intelligence.
"Well, go on," says he, giving his aunt a push when the friendly hand-shake has come to an end.
"Go on? Where?" asks she, with apparent unconcern but a deadly foreboding at her breast. She knows her Tommy.
"You said you were going to make it up with him!" says that hero, regarding her with disapproving eyes.
"Well, I have made it up."
"No, you haven't! When you make it up with me you always kiss me! Why don't you kiss him?"
Consternation on the part of the principal actors. Dysart, strange to say, is the first to recover.
"Why indeed?" says he, giving way all at once to a fatal desire for laughter. This, Miss Kavanagh, being vexed with herself for her late confusion, resents strongly.
"I am sure, Tommy," says she, with a mildness that would not have imposed upon an infant, "that your lesson hour has arrived. Come, say good-bye to Mr. Dysart, and let us begin at once. You know I am going to teach you to-day. Good-bye, Mr. Dysart—if you want to see Barbara, you will find her very probably in the study."
"Don't go like this," says he anxiously. "Or if you will go, at least tell me that you will accept Lady Baltimore's invitation."