'Godfrey,' said Angel gravely, 'this isn't a thing to laugh at. Where have you been?'
'To Farmer White's pond to have a naval battle,' said Godfrey frankly.
'You must never go to that pond alone; it is deep in the middle and very dangerous, and you have disobeyed Aunt Betty. Next time you do it, I—I shall be obliged to whip you.'
Angel's voice faltered, and she turned a little pale as she spoke. In those days most little boys were whipped for disobedience, and Angel had always had a dreadful feeling that she might have to do it some day. There was no one else whose business it was to punish Godfrey, and so she knew that the duty would have to be done by herself, and the very thought made her feel quite cold and shaky.
Godfrey looked straight into her eyes.
'Yes, Aunt Angel,' he said. Then he suddenly took hold of her hand and stroked it.
'I didn't want to crack your heart, and Aunt Betty's,' he said. 'Please don't get thin; I'm sorry I had the battle. I'll go home now, and write all about the cover-up-candle-bell.'
For the next few days there was no fault to find with the way Godfrey's lessons were learnt, and he watched for every chance of pleasing Angelica, as if he were really afraid of her heart cracking, as Betty had suggested it might. The weather was cold and frosty now, and the two young aunts were much disturbed at the idea of Godfrey's first winter in a northern climate. Angel consulted with Penny and Martha, and stitched away diligently to provide the necessary warm clothes, and he certainly looked much stronger already than when he had first come to Oakfield.
There came a day, a bright, frosty day in December, when both the young ladies were in the kitchen helping Penelope with the mince-meat for Christmas pics, and Godfrey had his sum to do in the parlour by himself. Outside the sun was shining. There had been a little sprinkling of snow the day before and a sharp frost at night, and all the garden was white and sparkling like the ice on a sugared cake, while the bare trees shone like fairy land. Godfrey's eyes would not keep on the grey figures and the black slate. It was his first English winter, you see, and it seemed to him like Aunt Betty's stories of enchantment. And besides, only last night, when they sat together in the window seat and watched the stars coming out keen and clear above the white world, she had told him about Arctic discoverers, and how they sailed away over the grey northern seas till the ice barred their way, and how the bones of many brave men had been left behind in that dread, frozen world. Thinking of those great deeds always made Godfrey's cheeks glow and his heart beat quick, and now he laid down his slate and went and leaned with both elbows on the window ledge and looked out. And looking at what we want and oughtn't to have is a first step which takes us a long way, and the end of it was that Godfrey did as I fear many of us have done before him—left what he ought to do for what he wanted to do; that is to say, he went into the hall, took down his hat and coat, and went out into the frosty garden. He opened the wicket gate into the field, and the first person he saw there was Nancy Rogers, looking like a Christmas card with her red cloak and hood and a basket on her arm, as she came up the steep, snowy path which led across the field to the village.
Godfrey and Nancy were great friends, and she came running directly he called to her.