“No,” said Christina, rather sulkily, “but I didn’t think she’d mind.”
Roy looked troubled: his mother did not often make rules to interfere with their play, and when she did she liked to be obeyed. She had certainly forbidden Christina to take Joan Shoesmith out of the house. He did not say anything. Christina sat down and began to play. She was not really at all happy, because she knew it was wrong of her to have disobeyed, and she was really a very good girl. Roy went on fishing.
“Oh, do do something else,” Christina cried pettishly, after a few minutes. “It’s so cold sitting here waiting for you to catch stupid fish that never come. Let’s go to the cave.” The cave was an old disused lime-kiln, where robbers might easily have lived.
“All right,” Roy said.
“I’ll get there first,” Christina called out, beginning to run.
“Bah!” said Roy and ran after. They had raced for a hundred yards, when, with a cry, Christina fell. Roy, who was still some distance behind, having had to pack up his rod, hastened to Christina’s side. He found that she had scrambled to her knees, and was looking anxiously into Joan Shoesmith’s face.
“Oh, Roy,” she wailed, “her eyes have gone!”
It was too true. Joan Shoesmith, lately so radiantly observant, now turned to the world the blankest of empty sockets. Roy took her poor head in his hand and shook it. A melancholy rattle told that a pair of once serviceable blue eyes were now at large. Christina sank on the grass in an agony of grief—due partly, also, to the knowledge that if she had not been naughty this would never have happened. Roy stood by, feeling hardly less unhappy. After a while he took her arm. “Come along,” he said, “let’s see if Jim can mend her.”
“Jim!” Christina cried in a fury, shaking off his hand.
“But come along, anyway,” Roy said.