CHAPTER XIX.
“THEY HAVE NOT GONE YET.”
“THERE, I must say, Libbie,” remarked Mrs. Busson, as she busied herself with her Saturday’s tidying of store-room and linen-press, “we do seem to have had a nice, quiet week since last Sunday. One may say of those dear children that if they came in like lions, they’ll go out like lambs.”
“They haven’t gone yet, ma’am,” said Libbie, in a decided, though deferential tone, and she sighed somewhat significantly.
Libbie felt that she had paid rather heavily towards maintaining that week of peace.
Diana had taken to making cheese instead of mischief, and to stirring up jams instead of strife, and Libbie’s patience had not been a little taxed by the mis-placed zeal Di had displayed in both these pursuits; indeed, more than once Libbie had come near to losing her temper altogether, Di having achieved the loss already of much of her toil and time. Still it was certainly a fact beyond dispute, as Fay and Phoena agreed, that when Di was happily occupied and Andrew was invalided, matters went much more smoothly.
Andrew took a full week to recover from his sharp attack of asthma. On the whole he enjoyed that week very much, for not only were the girls his willing slaves, but the boys did their share as well in helping to amuse him. Although they generally hated the sight of dominoes, and voted a game of chess worse than vulgar fractions, yet whenever they came indoors they rushed up to Andrew’s room to offer to have a game with him, and they never once called him “Miss Annie.”
Even Gaston—though he never felt safe near the once savage ogre—actually brought his best-loved French picture books, and, depositing them on the chair nearest to Andrew’s door, fled back down the passage as though wolves were pursuing him.
“It’s a pity that he’s such a frightened little frog,” said Hubert.
To Marygold’s grief Hubert had taken to copying his elder brother’s contempt for Gaston.