“My custard! my custard!” cried Belle.
CHAPTER XVII.
ROLAND’S PROJECT.
“BONNY, are you hurt?”
“Bonny, have you spilled my custards?”
“Bonny, have you broken down the stairs?”
For answer to all these anxious inquiries, which indicated the particular dread of each inquirer, there presently came up from the region of darkness below a ripple of hysterical laughter, which rapidly increased in volume till the hearers were forced to join in it.
This was more than Robert could patiently endure, and, regardless of Sunday clothes, he bounded down the stairs, and so noisily that he did not hear Beatrice’s swift remonstrance: “Don’t, Bob! For mercy’s sake, don’t come down here! There, you’ve finished it!”
Mrs. Beckwith quietly and cautiously followed the headlong flight of her youngest child, and half-way to the lower floor stopped in utter dismay. There, at the bottom of the flight, sat Bonny, with Robert in her lap, whither he had fallen promptly, amidst a pile of broken cups, and with each of the unfortunates plentifully splashed with some sort of sticky, yellowish liquid.
“Well, what have you done?”
“Why, spilled the custards!”