"You had better put them on at once," Miss Warren said, the vexation she felt sounding in her voice.
Dick obeyed; but it was a difficult task, for his shoes and stockings were perfectly sodden with seawater; at last, however, it was accomplished.
"Now, come home!" said Miss Warren. "I don't know what the villagers will think of you, I'm sure! Fortunately salt water does not, as a rule, induce cold; still, we had better hurry home."
"Shall I carry your camp-stool, Aunt Mary Ann?" Dick asked, in a meek voice.
"No, thank you; I prefer to carry it myself!"
Miss Warren marched on in front looking extremely dignified, and Dick followed with Nero at his heels. It would have been difficult to say if the boy or the dog was the wetter.
Dick walked with great discomfort, for his garments were sticking to his skin; and he was fully conscious of the looks—half-astonished, half-amused—on the faces of those he met. He knew his aunt was angry, and not without cause. He was feeling extremely miserable and dejected; so that when he saw his grandfather's figure emerge from a shop doorway, his first impulse was to take to his heels and run away. Instead of acting thus foolishly, however, he continued to advance, though he could not help growing uncomfortably red.
"Good-morning, Miss Warren!" Sir Richard said; and she was obliged to stop and shake hands with him. He seemed in a particularly genial humour, and viewed his grandson with a twinkle of amusement in his keen dark eyes.
"Have you met with an accident, Dick?" he inquired. "You look—well, to put it mildly—a trifle moist!"
"Moist!" echoed Miss Warren. "He is dripping, simply dripping!"