"Did they have gas?" said Amy.
"Gas!" said Susie, with a superior smile. "How silly you are, Amy! They had no gas then—only candles, or perhaps lamps. And I don't see how they could pull out teeth with lamps; do you?"
"No," said Amy, in a small, mortified voice.
"I daresay," nurse went on, as if there had been no interruption, "that it would have been easier for Miss Susie to have been brave in a history book than if the trial came to her here."
"I don't see why," argued Susie.
"Well, we are made so," said nurse. "Other people's trials are a deal easier to bear than our own. Now you've been good children to-day, and I'll make a surprise for tea as a reward. I'm going to leave you Master Dick for an hour, Miss Susie; and you'll look after him well, and when I wave you'll bring him in. Don't sit down any longer, but have a bit of play on the sand; it's getting chilly, and it looks like more rain."
"All right," said Susie.
She was filled with light-hearted joy, and nurse's praise warmed her heart; nurse so seldom praised her. She helped Alick's wilful legs to the foot of the steps and watched him out of sight.
"I am so very glad I have made up my mind to be good," she said to herself; "it is perfectly easy if you make up your mind. I wish the twins would come and want me to leave Dick, or go on the rocks, or do something naughty. I would just stand here and look at them with my large innocent eyes and my gentle smile, and I would say, 'Never, twins! Nurse has trusted him to me, and I have turned over a new leaf. I would not touch the rocks with my bare feet, not for a king's ransom.'"
"Susie," cried Dick.