"Certainly," she sighed. "I'll go just as soon as your nose stops bleeding—what a mess you are in. I wonder whether Prince Pony would eat that chocolate?" and she made a sudden dash up the ladder and came back with some sticky brown stuff on a bit of the cardboard box.
I turned my head away. I was not going to help her clean up.
"Your Prince is indignant," she said. "He despises me. Oh! come away to the house. Maybe when I'm punished I'll feel better," and she dragged Dallas down to the veranda where her sensible mother sat quietly reading letters.
Mrs. Devering put up her eyebrows when she saw the state my dear young master was in, then she listened to Cassowary's mournful story.
Her arm was round the sobbing girl, for her dark eyes told her that the grinning cheerful Dallas did not need any sympathy.
"I am glad that your father is away, dearie," she said to Cassowary. "This would have distressed him terribly. Dallas is your guest and your cousin. I wonder what we can do to these young hands to make them remember not to offend against the laws of hospitality?"
"M-m-make them sew," gurgled Cassowary. "They just hate it."
Mrs. Devering was slowly caressing the girl's long brown fingers. "Poor little hands," she said gently, "poor little hands."
"And bad brain," said Cassowary, "bad, bad brain that makes the hands act so shamefully."
"Dallas," said Mrs. Devering, "is there anything I can do for you?"