“It’s only me,” he said, with extreme depreciation in his tone, “and my brother Teddie.”
Mrs. Conway held out a welcoming hand.
[“Come in,”] she said, “you have been very kind, little boys. Can you get down there all right? This is Teddie, is it? And what is your name? Clif? Clif Wise? What made you take such a funny way of doing good to us?”
“‘Come in,’ she said, ‘you have been very kind little boys’”
Three Little Maids] [[Page 154]
[155]
]Clif grew redder than ever. He had climbed down at her request, and Teddie had followed him, but he was very anxious now to depart by way of the door.
“We’ll have to go now,” he said at last, after a minute or two’s silence, during which Phyl and Dolly had studied him critically. “Come on, Ted.”
But Mrs. Conway threw herself upon his protection in such a way that he felt a most pleasurable thrill of manliness.
“If you would stay and help me for a little time I should be very glad,” she said; “you see everything is so new and strange to us, we don’t know where to turn for anything. For instance, where can we get water from?—everything here seems empty.”