"Yes, but what's mischief?" asked Archie.
Blessington was a simple and direct theologian.
"Well, I shouldn't wonder if it's doing what Sapum wants you to do," said she, Sapum being her equivalent for the arch-enemy.
"I shouldn't wonder either," said Archie. "But it's rather beastly of Sapum to take possession of a very small boy with a bad cold in the head."
"Eh, he takes possession of us all, if we let him," observed Blessington. "But that was the naughtiest thing you ever did, dear. I wouldn't lay it up to you now."
"Was I good as a rule?" asked he.
"Yes, Master Archie, for a boy you were," said Blessington. "Boys are more trouble than girls, as is natural and proper."
"But doesn't Sapum enter into girls, too?" asked he, with another thought in his mind.
"Yes, to be sure, but not so violent-like. And when after that you were took ill, and we all went out to—eh, what's the name of that place in Switzerland—I must say you were wonderfully good. It was as if some angel took possession of you, not one of Sapum's flibertigibbits. You were no trouble at all; and see how quick you got well."
Archie rocked himself backwards and forwards for a minute in silence.