“Aow! they pinch!”
“Where, sir?”
Master Will, not being able to say exactly where, was left to get used to the new boots as well as he could.
“Now see, here’s your new suit; an’ be careful with it, mind—careful as iver was. It’s me afternoon out; and if ye go tearin’ the cloos on ye, ye’ll jist mind thim yersel, or else go in tatthers wid yer grandmamma.”
This speech had no more wholesome effect on Will than to cause him to stick out his tongue at Emily, while Kathleen, standing behind him, arranged his buttons and his drapery generally.
“Now, if you could only be as good as you’re purty,” exclaimed Kathleen, wheeling Will suddenly round before his tongue was quite in place again, “you’d do well enough.”
With a few finishing touches to Emily’s sash ribbon, Kathleen went off to make her own gorgeous toilet for her afternoon out.
The dinner was next to be gotten through with. But that was not an unpleasant hour to Will. After dinner the children were permitted by their mother to amuse themselves under the shadow of the great elm behind the house. She knew that with Emily this permission simply meant liberty to sit quietly beneath the overhanging branches, gazing dreamily over the soft summer landscape, or listening to the sweet sounds that stirred the air around and above her. But with Will it might be more broadly interpreted into leave for frequent raids over fences and through bars for butterflies and beetles, or any luckless rover that strayed along. So she explained to her son in this wise:—
“Will, dear, remember that your grandmamma is coming for you, and you must not soil or tear your clothes by running about. Play quietly in the shade. The time will not be long now.”
“Yes, mum.”