This afternoon they did not feel in good enough spirits to play, and almost without speaking they walked quietly in the direction of “the hill.”

“Us can see when Grandpapa and Grandmamma are coming in time to run round and meet them at the gate,” said Pamela, as they climbed up the bank.

“I don’t think I want to see them coming, and I don’t want them to see us,” said Duke.  “Sister, I am so midderable that I think if there was a big sea near here I would go into it and be drowned.”

“Bruvver!” ejaculated Pamela.

“Yes, sister,” he continued, “it would be the best thing.  For if I was drown_ded_ quite dead, they’d all be so sorry that then you could tell them about the bowl, and Biddy would not be scolded.  And—­and—­you could say it was far most my fault, you know, for it was, and then they wouldn’t be very angry with you.  Yes,” he repeated solemnly, “it would be the best thing.”

By this time Pamela was completely dissolved in tears—­tears of indignation as well as of grief.

“Bruvver,” she began again, “how can you say that?  Us has always been togevver.  How can you fink I would ever say it was most your fault, not if you was ever so drownded.  But oh, bruvver, don’t frighten me so.”

Duke’s own tears were flowing too.

“There isn’t any big sea near here,” he said; “I only said if there was.  It’s just that I am so very midderable.  I wish Nurse hadn’t got ill.”

“Oh, so do I,” said Pamela fervently.

By this time they had reached Spy Tower.  Pamela seated herself discreetly on the bench, though it was so much too high for her that her short legs dangled in the air.  Duke established himself on the ground in front of her.  It was a very still day—­more like late summer than spring—­hardly a leaf stirred, and in the distance various sounds, the far-off barking of a dog, the faint crowing and cackling of cocks and hens, the voices, subdued to softness, “of the village boys and girls at play,” all mingled together pleasantly.  The children were too young to explain to themselves the pleasant influences about them, of the soft sunshine and the cloudless sky, seen through the network of branches overhead, of the balmy air and sweet murmurs of bird and insect life rejoicing in the spring-time; but they felt them nevertheless.

“How very happy us would have been to-day if it hadn’t been for the bowl being brokened,” said Duke.

“No, it began before that,” said Pamela.  “It was the not telling Grandmamma.  I fink that was the real naughty, bruvver.  I don’t fink Grandmamma would have minded so much us giving the bread and milk to Toby.”

“Her wouldn’t have given us any treat,” objected Duke.

“Well, that wouldn’t have mattered very much for once.  And perhaps it would have been a good fing; perhaps Grandmamma would have told Cook not to send up quite so much, and——­”