“Harry, what a preacher you are!—what a terrible preacher!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton.
“Where does the terror come in?” asked Mr. Burton, with signs of that indignation which every man with an idea in advance of his generation must frequently be afflicted by.
“Why, to imply that there’s so much injustice being done to children.”
“Of course the saying of it is worse than the fact of its existence,” said Mr. Burton, with a curl of the lip.
“Please don’t speak in that cruel way, Harry. It isn’t anything of the sort—excepting for a moment or two.”
Mr. Burton apologized, and restored confidence without saying a word, and then the couple turned instinctively to look at the first causes of their conversation, but the boys were gone.
“The tocsin of their souls, the dinner-bell—breakfast-bell, I mean, has probably sounded,” said Mr. Burton; “and I’m as hungry as a bear myself. Let’s descend and see what they’ve succeeded in doing within five brief minutes.”
The Burtons found the dining-room, but not the boys and the chambermaid was sent in search of them. The meal was slowly consumed but the boys did not appear.
“You’d better have the cook prepare something additional,” suggested Mr. Burton, as he arose and started for his train. “The appetite of the small boy is a principal that accumulates frightful usury in a very small while after maturity.”
Mrs. Burton acted upon her husband’ suggestion, and busied herself about household affairs for an hour or more, until, learning that the boys had not yet arrived, she strolled out to search for them. Supposing that they might have been overpowered by their impatience so far as to have gone home at once, she visited the residence of her sister-in-law, and inquired of Mike.