"Toddie, dear, don't you love Brother Budge?"
"Yesh," sobbed Toddie.
"Then you ought to be happy," said Budge, "for you've made him awful happy. If the fish hadn't caught you, the general couldn't have pulled him off, an' then he wouldn't have tumbled into the pond, an' oh, my!—didn't he splash bully!"
"Then you's got to be bited with a fiss," said Toddie, "an' make him tumble in again, for me to laugh 'bout."
"You're two naughty boys," said Mrs. Burton. "Is this the way you take care of your sick uncle?"
"Did take care of him," exclaimed Toddie; "told him a lovely Bible story, an' you didn't, an' he wouldn't have had no Sunday at all if I hadn't done it. An' we's goin' to take him widin' this afternoon."
Mrs. Burton hurried home, but it seemed to her that she had never met so many inquiring acquaintances during so short a walk. Arrived at last, she ordered her nephews to their room, and flung herself in tears beside her husband, murmuring:
"Henry!"
And Mr. Burton, having viewed the ruined dress with the eye of experience, uttered the single word:
"Boys!"