“Harriet is quite the most noble girl in the world. If it was not for Harriet, there’d be no me at all.”
Robina burst into a merry laugh.
“Oh, Ralph; you funny little boy!” she said; “what are you talking about?”
“You don’t understand Harriet,” was Ralph’s next speech, and he looked at Robina without the favour he used to bestow upon her. She was his school-mother and, of course, the one he loved best; but still she had never saved his life.
“I wish I could see my darling Harriet,” he said, after a pause. “I wish I could see her all by my lone self. I want to talk to her. We has a great secret atween us.”
The doctor, however, had forbidden Ralph to leave his bed that day, and certainly Harriet could not leave hers. In consequence, the children did not meet for a few days, and then it was rather a pale little boy who rushed into the arms of a thin, pale girl who, weak from the somewhat severe attack she had gone through, was seated in an easy chair not far from an open window.
“Now go ’way, all of you,” said Ralph, “I want to talk to my ownest school-mother. I has a great secret to talk over with her.”
The others obeyed without any protest. Robina, when she left the room, turned to Jane.
“I am sure of one thing,” she said: “something must have happened that day when Ralph and Harriet were left alone together. They were both quite well even although Harriet was cross when we started on our expedition to the beach; but they both got ill that very night, and since then, Ralph has altered: he is devoted to Harriet.”
“Perhaps he has learned to love Harriet best,” said Jane.