Mrs. Darling laughed aloud. “I’ll be so careful that I’ll drop you like a hot potato if any one comes sneaking around.”
And so the little boy in No. 60 was carried ignominiously down the long stairs, his fair head resting against Mrs. Darling’s plump shoulder.
Nora, down on her hands and knees, was piling logs on a roaring fire. It did look cozy. The little boy was almost glad he had come, only fires and crackling logs somehow need a great laughing crew about them. You really shouldn’t be at all lonesome beside a fire, because it is such a big, warm, glorious, friendly thing. Mrs. Darling set him down carefully and stuffed a pillow behind his back. The little boy quite hated the sight of a pillow, but he let it stay because it did feel good in that spot, and then she bustled away, for just “half a minute,” and left him watching Nora, still poking and prodding the fire as though she were trying to keep it awake.
Suddenly he spoke. “Nora,” he said, “what ever are you crying for?”
Nora did not answer, but her shoulders began to shake, and she dropped the poker.
“Nora, I guess perhaps I know why you’re crying,” he said thoughtfully.
“O-o-h!” moaned Nora, her hands over her face. “It’s homesick I am, and I’ve thried me bes’ niver to shid a tear, an’ now what’ll Mrs. Darlin’ say?”
“Never mind her,” he said soothingly. “Never mind her at all. Perhaps, Nora, if you keep on crying, I’ll cry too, and it wouldn’t be very good for me, I don’t—believe.” There was the least bit of a catch in his voice, and Nora swung around.
“For shame on me!” she cried, “whin it’s you as should be mournin’—bein’ so sick an’ little an’ swate. Sure, an’ don’t you begin to cry, for Mrs. Darlin’ will be blamin’ me.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said quietly. “I’ll try very hard. Nora,” he said, “have you a-a—m-oth—”