"Are we going to live up there?"
"Did he really ask us too? Oh, won't it be jolly? Won't it be scrumptious? Aunt Saint said you'd gone to settle it all. Do say that it's all settled now."
"Yes, quite," answered Esther; "Mr. Trelawny wants us to go as soon as ever we can. He says the house seems so empty and lonely now that he can't read or go about or amuse himself as he used to do. And he wants Mr. Earle so much more now; that is another reason. You must be very good and nice, boys, and not give trouble. We mustn't worry him now that he's ill."
"We won't," cried Pickle earnestly. "We'll be as good as gold. I mean, we'll try to be as good as we can.—Won't we, Puck?"
"We will," answered that young man solemnly. "I should like Mr. Trelawny to like us. Perhaps, then, he'll let us stay always. I mean till Crump—no, till father comes back or we go to school. I don't like it when Mr. Earle is angry with us, and I don't want Uncle Bob to be either."
"I think it'll be awfully nice," said Pickle, as they wended their way home again through the wood. "I shall try and help Uncle Bob too. Aunt Saint said he wanted you, Essie, because you would be like a pair of eyes to him. I know why he thought that. You're always doing kind things for other people, and you don't care about yourself if other people are happy. I just know if I were to be ill, I should like to have you come and see me and sit with me. It can't be just because you're a girl, for that Pretty Polly is a girl, and she thinks herself very good too, but I'd sooner have a toad come to sit with me than her."
"O Pickle, don't talk like that!"
"I'd twice as soon have the toad," cried Puck; "toads are nice things, and they have such funny eyes—like precious stones. She's just a prig, and I can't abide her. We won't ever ask her up to play at the Crag. I shall tell Uncle Bob about her, and he won't let her come then."
"That would be unkind," said Esther gently. "I don't think we ought to be unkind to Prissy. She tries to be very good, you know, and she is always obedient."
Pickle and Puck were silent for a minute. They had been thinking, very seriously for them, about obedience of late. They had recognized their own failure, and had been sorry for it. In the old days they had taken this matter too lightly, but they were learning better now.