Nelly laughed out, and so did the nurse.
"You have a droll tongue in your head, my boy," she said. "I came to ask you if you wouldn't come over to the tent there and see Master Arthur. He's in the chair there: see him? He's lame: he can't walk."
"What's the matter with him?" asked Nelly. "Was he always lame?"
"Oh, no!" said the nurse: "he got a fall when he was about six years old, and he's been lame ever since: he's twelve now. But I must go right back: he don't like to be alone a minute. Will you come across?"
Rob looked at Nelly.
"Mamma said we might go this afternoon," he said: "do you think she'd care if we went now?"
"We'd better go and ask her," answered Nelly. "You tell the little boy we've gone to ask our mother if we may come," she said to the nurse, and ran off with Rob to the house as fast as feet could go.
The nurse looked after them, and sighed.
"Well, those are well-brought-up children, whosever they are, to be found out in this wilderness. Oh, but I'd like to see Master Arthur run like that."
Flora had been little Arthur's nurse ever since he was a baby; and, though she was often out of patience with him, she loved him dearly. When she went back and told him what the children said, he muttered fretfully:—