“Oh, me don’t ’ike dis place; me wants to go home,” sobbed Nannette.
“So do I,” said Harry, tears rolling down his cheeks. Blanche too was crying, though softly, and Ethel’s eyes were full of tears. But she tried to be cheerful and brave.
“We’ll make haste to bed and to sleep, and in the morning we’ll all feel better,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully. “Blanche and I will undress you little ones, then get undressed ourselves, and soon we’ll all be in bed.”
And so they were, Ethel last of all; the other three were asleep when at last her weary little head was laid upon its pillow. Her young heart was sad and sore, for it seemed a cheerless sort of home they had come to—oh, so different from that which had been theirs but a few short months before, with the dear parents whom she would see never again upon earth. With that thought in her mind she wept herself to sleep.
CHAPTER VII.
In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Coote were in the dining room, partaking of a much more elaborate meal than had been given to their young charges.
“Well, what do you think of them?” queried Coote, stirring and tasting his tea, then reaching for the sugar bowl and helping himself to another spoonful of its contents.
“I can tell more about that when I’ve had time to make their acquaintance,” she answered dryly.
“The boy’s an impudent little rascal,” remarked her husband, reddening with anger as he spoke; then, in reply to her enquiring look, he went on to tell the story of the candy.
She listened in silence and with a look of growing contempt.