"You don't mean—" said Roger. "You are not troubled about THAT?"
But it appeared that Hildegarde was troubled about that.
"My dear child, do you think I did not see that it was not your fault? You were doing beautifully, if that—if Miss Everton had let you alone for an instant. And do you think I mind a wetting, or twenty wettings? Miss Hilda, I thought you knew better than that."
"I was so stupid!" said Hildegarde, wiping her eyes, and trying to speak evenly. "I thought you were very angry, because you were so silent. I thought you would never—"
"Silent, was I? Well, you know I am in a brown study half the time. Isn't that why they call me Roger the Codger? But this time,—oh, I remember! I was trying to make out how that shoal came to be there, when it is not buoyed out on the map. Come, Miss Hilda, you must laugh now!"
And Hilda laughed, and dried her eyes, and looked up,
"All kinder smily round the lips,
And teary round the lashes."
"That's right!" said Roger, heartily. "Now you shall be Kitty, and we will—-we will shake hands and be friends, and eat an apple together. Kitty and I always do that when we have had a tiff."
So they did; and the apples on that tree were the best apples in the world.