“David,” she said, “you must go straight back to the parsonage, and beg Mrs. Henderson to forgive you.”
David shrank into a little heap. “Oh, I can’t do that, Polly; she’ll make me stay to dinner.”
“That would never do,” said Polly.
So she hopped out of the big chair and set him on his feet. “I’ll get you something to eat, and then you can tell her you have been to dinner if she asks you.” And presently David was seated before the old table, and eating, as well as he could for his tears, a cold potato well sprinkled with salt and a generous slice of brown bread.
But he didn’t get to the parsonage after all, for just as he was swallowing the last mouthful, in walked the parson’s wife.
“I want you to come over to-morrow, Davie,” she said, just as if nothing in the world a bit unpleasant had happened, “and you and I will work in the attic.”
“Dear Mrs. Henderson, Davie has something he wants to say to you,” Polly began in a trembling voice.
David got out of his chair and went over on unsteady feet to her.
“I didn’t mean to be bad,” he said, his poor swollen little face working dreadfully.
“I know, dear,” said the parson’s wife, bending over him sympathetically, and stroking the soft, wavy hair with a kind hand.