“No, we won’t,” said Budge.  “You don’t know what nice nurses we can be to sick people. Papa says nobody can even imagine how well we can take care of anybody until they see us do it.  If you don’t believe it, just leave us with Uncle Harry, an’ stay home from church an’ peek through the key-hole.”

“Go on, Allie,” said Mr. Burton.  “If you want to go to church, don’t be afraid to leave me.  I think you should go—­after your experience of this morning.  I shouldn’t think your mind could be at peace until you had joined your voice with that of the great congregation, and acknowledged yourself to be a miserable sinner.”

Mrs. Burton winced, but nevertheless retired, and soon appeared dressed for church, kissed her husband and her nephews, gave many last instructions, and departed.  Budge followed her with his eye until she had stepped from the piazza, and then remarked, with a sigh of relief: 

“Now I guess we’ll have what papa calls a good, old-fashioned time—­we’ve got rid of her.”

“Budge!” exclaimed Mr. Burton, sternly, and springing to his feet, “do you know who you are talking about?  Don’t you know that your Aunt Alice is my wife, and that she has saved you from many a scolding, done you many a favor, and been your best friend?”

“Oh, yes,” said Budge, with at least a dozen inflections on each word, “but ev’ry day friends an’ Sunday friends are kind o’ different; don’t you think so? She can’t make whistles, or catch bull-frogs, or carry both of us up the mountain on her shoulders, or sing ‘Roll, Jordan.’”

“And do you expect me to do all these things to-day?” asked Mr. Burton.

“N—­n—­no,” said Budge, “unless you should get well an’ feel just like it; but we’d like to be with somebody who could do ’em if he wanted to.  We like ladies that’s all ladies, but then we like men that’s all men, too.  Aunt Alice is a good deal like an angel, I think, and you—­you ain’t.  An’ we don’t want to be with angels all the time until we’re angels ourselves.”

Mr. Burton turned over suddenly and contemplated the back of the lounge at this honest avowal of one of humanity’s prominent weaknesses, while Budge continued: 

“We don’t want you to get to be an angel, so what I want to know is, how to make you well.  Don’t you think if I borrowed papa’s horse and carriage an’ took you ridin’ you’d feel better?  I know he’d lend ’em to me if I told him you were goin’ to drive.”

“And if you said you were going with me to take care of me?” suggested Mr. Burton.

“Y—­e—­es,” said Budge, as hesitatingly as if such an idea had never occurred to him.  “An’ don’t you think that up to the top of the Hawksnest Rock an’ out to Passaic Falls would be the nicest places for a sick man to go?  When you got tired of ridin’ you could stop the carriage an’ cut us a cane, or make us whistles, or find us pfingster apples (the seed-balls of the wild azalea), or even send us in swimming in a brook somewhere if you got tired of us.”