“I’m not—very,” said Dick; but he put his hand on Ned’s shoulder, and kindly offered a second handkerchief.
“Now, you mad Indians, go and make yourselves decent. It is time for luncheon.”
Rose went up the cliff to where Miss Anne still stood. “I think it is dreadful, most dreadful.”
“I used to, my dear, but on the whole it clears the air, and the boys seem none the worse for it. Jack is usually the ferment; Dick is hot of temper; and Ned, my dear Ned, would die on the rack for a sentiment.”
When the family sat down to the luncheon, a stranger would have detected no evidence of the recent warfare. The mother, once or twice, cast an anxious look at the slight enlargement of Ned’s nose, but, to the surprise of Rose, what had seemed to her an angry contest made no kind of alteration in the good humor of the lads. Ned was as usual silent; but Dick and Jack were busily discussing the color of the trout they had taken: some were dark, some brighter in tint.
It was the good habit of this old-fashioned household to invite the talk and questions of the children.
“You got the blacker ones at Grime’s run, near the mouth,” said Mr. Lyndsay; “the others in the river below. Well, what do you make of it?”
“Isn’t the bottom dark in the places where the fish are dark?” said Dick.
“Put it backward,” replied his father, “and you will have a part of the truth.”
“But how could that act?” said Dick.