He thought that everybody would be sure to laugh at him when he played with Bonny in the apple-tree house.
"I don't care a ram if they do," he said. But nobody ever did, not even Mr. Parsons.
Only Frances, when she passed by that way and saw Nicky and Bonny sitting cramped and close under their roof-tree, smiled unwillingly. But her smile had in it no sort of mockery at all. Nicky wondered why.
"Is it," said Dorothy one morning, "that Ronny doesn't look as if she was Uncle Bartie's daughter, or that Uncle Bartie looks as if he wasn't Ronny's father?"
However suddenly and wantonly an idea struck Dorothy, she brought it out as if it had been the result of long and mature consideration.
"Or is it," said Vera, "that I don't look as if I were Ronny's mother?"
Her eyes had opened all their length to take in Dorothy.
"No. I think it is that Uncle Bartie looks--"
Frances rushed in. "It doesn't matter, my dear, what you think."
"It will some day," said Dorothy.