Of course they were lonesome without their parents, and they surely wished Dinah and Sam would return. But Bert and Nan, putting aside their own feelings, amused Flossie and Freddie, so that the small twins laughed merrily.
“Will you be afraid to stay here while I go out with Mr. Ander a little while?” asked Bert of his sister, when supper was over.
“Oh, no,” Nan answered. “That is, if you don’t stay too late.”
“I won’t,” he promised. “Only long enough to give Danny back his ring and see what he has to say.”
A little later the deacon arrived at the Bobbsey house. He went to the side door and brushed the snow off his boots with a broom that was kept there for the purpose.
“Is it snowing much?” asked Bert, as he let Mr. Ander in.
“Yes, snowing hard,” was the answer. “I don’t know when we’ve had so much snow this early in the winter. It keeps up as if it would never stop. How are you, Nan?” he asked kindly. “And how is the fat fairy and the big fireman?” he asked, patting Flossie and Freddie.
Fairy and fireman were the pet names Mr. Bobbsey often called his small twins, and the deacon, being a friend of the family, remembered this.
“I’m all right,” Freddie answered. “Do you think there’ll be a fire to-night, Mr. Deacon?”
“Mr. Ander—not Mr. Deacon!” corrected Nan.