“Oh! you good old Ruth, don’t begin preaching so early in the day,” said Di; “of course, I’m dreadfully sorry for Andrew and I mean to be ever so careful not to disturb him.”
And certainly she kept her word, declaring, as she went down stairs, that she should beg the boys to be very kind to Andrew.
But there was no need for her to exhort them on that point.
Jack and Phil were full of compassion for their cousin, a compassion which as Di guessed, was greatly leavened with compunction.
For though no one, not even Hubert, had divulged a word of the ducking, the schoolboys’ own conscience accused them pretty clearly as to the cause of Andrew’s sharp attack of illness.
And though they might have been heard muttering more than once, “Well, it only served him right!” their tone signified unmistakably, “I wish to goodness that we’d never done it.”
Moreover Andrew’s patience and real pluck in bearing his suffering had appealed to them strongly.
“Poor old beggar,” said Jack, “to see him panting like a steam engine and as white as a turnip, and trying all the time to grin over it, made one feel jolly bad all over.”
“Yes, it’s awful hard luck on the wretched chap,” said Phil, “I wish one could do something for the poor specimen.”
“I expect,” began Hubert, with some practical shrewdness, “if we never called him ‘Miss Annie’ again, it—”