“No: but you are.”
“I?” cried the boy. “Why?”
“Go up into your bedroom, have a good bathe at your face, and then look in the glass. That will tell you why.”
The Vicar walked away, and Tom slipped in quietly without being seen, hurried up to his room, and reversed the advice he had received; for instead of bathing himself first he walked straight to the glass, gave one long look, and turned away in despair, for his face looked far worse than it had done in the clear water.
“What will uncle say?” groaned Tom; and he forgot Mrs Fidler, who came up to his door to see if he had returned, and receiving no answer to her knock, she walked in, and then said a good deal, but it was while working hard to alleviate the boy’s pain.
In the midst of it all Uncle Richard came home.
“Now for it,” said Tom bitterly. “What will he say?”
He soon heard, and when he did, there was a singular choky feeling in his throat. For Uncle Richard called up the stairs—
“Feel well enough to come down, Tom? Never mind your looks.”
He went down, still expecting a severe rating, but instead of meeting an angry face there was a very merry one, for he was saluted by a roar of laughter.