“There's a great deal the matter,” Regie replied, calmly; “and I should think Harry would be ashamed of himself.”
“Nan began it,” said Harry, with Adam-like self-excusing. “Harry got so mad,” explained Regie, excitedly, “that he threw——
“Wait a minute, Regie, let Harry tell me himself.”
“Yes, I got so mad,” said Harry, using Regie's own words, “that I took everything from Nan's bed and pitched it downstairs. Nan threw my Sunday suit down first, or I would never have thought of it. But I helped bring all the clothes up again, so I don't see what she wants to cry about it now for.”
“I am not crying about that at all, Sister Julia,” sobbed Nan, without raising her head; “I'm crying because he said 'I was enough to try the patience of a saint.' I don't know what it means, but I think it's an awful unkind thing for a brother to say.”
Sister Julia could hardly keep from smiling at this unexpected turn of affairs. Harry and Regie laughed outright, which did not help matters much.
Sister Julia motioned the boys from the room, and sitting down by Nan, on the side of the bed, stroked the brown curls till the sobs grew few and far between. Then she explained that “she was enough to try the patience of a saint” was not such a very dreadful thing for Harry to have said, and finally induced Nan to admit, smiling through her tears, that both she and Harry were to blame, and that on the whole they had had rather a funny time of it Presently Captain and Mrs. Murray came home, finding everything in order about the house. Only you and Sister Julia, little reader, ever heard the full history of that rainy Saturday morning.
