“I’ve been cwying hard all the time,” was Poppet’s sorrowfully superior answer; she was feeling disappointed with herself at being so near her own last tear, and it made her more severe with him. “I don’t b’leeve you care a bit.”
“I’m thorrier than you, tho there!” he retorted tearfully.
“Why, you’ve hardly cwied at all!”
“I have, I cried for hourth,—you’re a thtory, Poppet.”
Bunty bade them hold their tongues. He got up and reached “Hereward the Wake” off the side table to try to occupy his thoughts with; he was half through “Tom Floremall’s School Days,” and it lay open on the same table, but he felt it would have been unfeeling to read anything so light.
The example, however, encouraged the children. Poppet put out her hand and caught the black kitten that had tapped her shoulder temptingly once [243] ]or twice; she cuddled down on the hearthrug with it, after giving Peter a kiss of forgiveness.
And Peter, utterly relieved, banged Marlborough and Lobengula together in such fierce single combat that it is wonderful neither of them was decapitated.
The door handle turned and Nellie came in again, Nellie with a sheet-white face, heavy wet lashes, and swollen eyes.
“I’m going up again,” she said.
“Tho ’m I,” said Peter, springing to his feet.