“I must wake up Bim and Christopher,” she said. “Will you wait for me? Their room is not far away.”
She ran off, but came headlong in collision with somebody round the corner of the stairs.
“Mercy,” exclaimed a sharp voice, “the children again, I’ll be bound.” This was said with great asperity, and Clare, recovering as best she might from a stinging box on the ear, had just time to see Peg Woffington pass round the corner in the shortest skirt, and jauntiest little bodice imaginable.
“Bim said she looked cross, and isn’t she!” thought Clare, as she ran on into the boys’ room.
But what was her surprise to find the beds empty, Bim and Christopher were gone. “Never mind, come downstairs,” said Dolorès; “I dare say Leslie may have taken them down.”
No steps of Clare’s could take her sufficiently swiftly. To be left behind was to her something intolerable; the boys were already down and perhaps having all sorts of fun, and she’d gone in to wake them up, and it wasn’t fair. If you sound the letters pr very quickly for a second, it will give you some idea how quickly she ran downstairs.
G. Morland.
CHILDREN PLAYING AT SOLDIERS.
Bim and Christopher were standing together talking to a group of children, and Clare heard Bim explaining: