“Oh Ralph, how careless and awkward you are! Really, you must not do this sort of thing again.”
“I is seepy: I really want to go to bed,” said Ralph. “I am awfu’ sorry, Harriet, and when you saved my life and all! Oh, let me sop it up.”
He took his own table-napkin and tried to repair the mischief, but Harriet pulled her dress roughly out of his hands and, telling the other girls that she must go away to wash the stains out, left the room.
“Now, Ralph,” said Patience, when this had happened; “if I were you I would go straight off to my by-by downy nest; you know you are just longing to be in it.”
“I is,” said Ralph, “but I mustn’t go, must I, Robina?”
He looked straight at Robina for guidance.
“I don’t know,” replied Robina, just glancing at him, and then looking away.
“But Robina, do tell him to go,” said Patience. “If any two people at the present moment are supposed to have authority over Ralph, you and Harriet are those individuals. Harriet has gone away to mop her dress, and Ralph looks quite white with fatigue.”
“I cannot interfere,” said Robina.
“Very well,” said Patience; “then I will: I am a school-mother too. This sort of thing has got to end. Come, Ralph, I shall take you to bed.”