Howard looked up quickly, and Jack went on, "I wrote you that Mrs. Brown said she was poor, and I should know it by her boots."
"Her boots!" Howard repeated, and Jack continued, "Yes, wet as they were I noticed they were half-worn, and had been blacked many times. She can't afford to pay many doctor's bills, and I ask you again, how is she to get to school?"
Howard did not know, unless they made another chair and carried her.
"I wouldn't mind it much for the sake of her arm around my neck. I can feel it yet. Can't you?" he said.
Jack could feel it and the little wet hand which once or twice had touched his face, but something in his nature forbade his talking about it. It might have been fun for them, but he knew it was like death to the girl, and that she had shrank from it all, and only submitted because she could not help it. He was very sorry for her, and thought of her the last moment before he fell asleep, and the first moment he awoke with Howard in the room telling him it was after breakfast time, and his uncle, who did not like to be kept waiting, was already in a temper and blowing like a northeaster.
The Colonel, who was suffering from an attack of rheumatic gout, was more irritable than usual. He had not liked having his horses and carriage go out in the rain, and had sat up waiting for the return of his nephew, and when Sam came in, telling what had happened to the carriage and horses, and that he must go back with a lantern to the park gates and see if the new school mistress was alive, he went into a terrible passion, swearing at the weather, and the late train, and the school mistress who he seemed to think was the cause of the accident.
"What business had she in the carriage? Why did she come in such a storm? Why didn't she take the 'bus, and if the 'bus wasn't there, why didn't she—?" He didn't know what, and it took all the tact of Peter, who was still in the family and old like his master, to quiet him.
Then next morning his gout was so bad that he was wheeled into the dining-room, where he was fast growing angry at the delay of breakfast, and beginning to swear again when Peter, who knew how to manage him, went for Amy. Nothing quieted the Colonel like a sight of Amy, with her sweet face and gentle ways.
"Please come. It's beginning to sizzle," Peter frequently said to her when a storm was brewing, and Amy always went, and was like oil on the troubled waters.
"What is it?" she now asked, and the Colonel replied, "What is it! I should say, what is it! There's the very old Harry to pay. Brutus has a big hole in his breast, the carriage is smashed, silk cushions all stained with a girl's blue gown, and that girl the school-teacher I didn't want; and she's broken her leg or something when they tipped over, and Howard and his friend carried her to Widow Biggs's, and the Lord knows what didn't happen!"