“I am afraid it will be a crib,” he said, “unless you share my room with me;” and then he told of the north chamber which he had insisted upon taking on account of his phthistic, which required so much fresh air.

“Phthisic!” Jack repeated. “You have the phthisic, when I know you have climbed the Rigi and Montanvert, and half the mountains in Switzerland!  Why, you are the longest-winded fellow I ever knew.”

“Still, I have the asthma so terribly that I could never sleep in Miss Bessie’s room, knowing she was freezing in that north wing,” Grey said, affecting a terrible wheeze.

“Yes, I see,” Jack replied, a light beginning to dawn upon him.  “I see—­and I am tisicky, too, and must have fresh air; so, old chap, if you’ll take me in, I’m yours.”

“But you will have to smoke cubebs,” Grey rejoined.  “You remember Mrs. Opie’s ‘White Lies’ and the ‘Potted Sprats?’ My asthma has proved a sprat, and there is a clay pipe at this moment waiting for me in the kitchen, and pretty soon you will see me puffing like a coal-pit.  Do you suppose they will make me vomit?”

“No doubt of it; they are awful nasty, but I will be a coal-pit too if necessary,” Jack said, ready for any emergency; but this was not required of him, and only Grey paid the penalty of the white lie, and smoked cubebs until everything around him grew black except the stars which danced before his eyes, and he was so dizzy he could scarcely stand.

The day passed rapidly, and both Jack and Grey enjoyed it immensely, especially the latter, who conducted himself as if he were perfectly at home and had known Bessie all his life.

After the dinner, which proved a great success, except that it was not served, as Neil would like to have had it, by liveried servants instead of the hobbling Dorothy.  Bessie announced her intention of washing the dishes to save the tired old woman’s feet.

“Nonsense, Bessie,” Neil said to her, in an aside “You surely will not do that before Jack and Grey; besides, so much dishwater will spoil your hands, which are red enough now.”

But Bessie cared more for Dorothy than for her hands, and proceeded with her dishwashing, while Grey insisted upon helping her.

“I know how to wipe dishes.  I’ve done it many a time for Aunt Hannah,” he said, while Jack proffered his assistance so earnestly that the two were soon habited in long kitchen aprons, that of Grey’s having a bib, which Bessie herself pinned upon his shoulders, standing on tiptoe to do it, her bright hair almost touching his moustache, and her fingers, as they moved upon his coat, sending strange little thrills through every nerve in his body.

What sport they had, and how awkwardly they handled the silver and the china, Jack assuming the Irish brogue he knew so well, and Grey the Yankee dialect, with the nasal twang, which nearly drove Bessie into hysterics, and made Archie laugh as he had not laughed in years.