“I told him he might,” said Marilla wearily.  “I thought it would keep him out of worse mischief.  He can only get dirty at that.  We’ll have our teas over before we call him to his.  Dora can have hers with us, but I would never dare to let Davy sit down at the table with all the Aids here.”

When Anne went to call the Aids to tea she found that Dora was not in the parlor.  Mrs. Jasper Bell said Davy had come to the front door and called her out.  A hasty consultation with Marilla in the pantry resulted in a decision to let both children have their teas together later on.

Tea was half over when the dining room was invaded by a forlorn figure.  Marilla and Anne stared in dismay, the Aids in amazement.  Could that be Dora . . . that sobbing nondescript in a drenched, dripping dress and hair from which the water was streaming on Marilla’s new coin-spot rug?

“Dora, what has happened to you?” cried Anne, with a guilty glance at Mrs. Jasper Bell, whose family was said to be the only one in the world in which accidents never occurred.

“Davy made me walk the pigpen fence,” wailed Dora.  “I didn’t want to but he called me a fraid-cat.  And I fell off into the pigpen and my dress got all dirty and the pig runned right over me.  My dress was just awful but Davy said if I’d stand under the pump he’d wash it clean, and I did and he pumped water all over me but my dress ain’t a bit cleaner and my pretty sash and shoes is all spoiled.”

Anne did the honors of the table alone for the rest of the meal while Marilla went upstairs and redressed Dora in her old clothes.  Davy was caught and sent to bed without any supper.  Anne went to his room at twilight and talked to him seriously . . . a method in which she had great faith, not altogether unjustified by results.  She told him she felt very badly over his conduct.

“I feel sorry now myself,” admitted Davy, “but the trouble is I never feel sorry for doing things till after I’ve did them.  Dora wouldn’t help me make pies, cause she was afraid of messing her clo’es and that made me hopping mad.  I s’pose Paul Irving wouldn’t have made his sister walk a pigpen fence if he knew she’d fall in?”

“No, he would never dream of such a thing.  Paul is a perfect little gentleman.”

Davy screwed his eyes tight shut and seemed to meditate on this for a time.  Then he crawled up and put his arms about Anne’s neck, snuggling his flushed little face down on her shoulder.

“Anne, don’t you like me a little bit, even if I ain’t a good boy like Paul?”

“Indeed I do,” said Anne sincerely.  Somehow, it was impossible to help liking Davy.  “But I’d like you better still if you weren’t so naughty.”

“I . . . did something else today,” went on Davy in a muffled voice.  “I’m sorry now but I’m awful scared to tell you.  You won’t be very cross, will you?  And you won’t tell Marilla, will you?”

“I don’t know, Davy.  Perhaps I ought to tell her.  But I think I can promise you I won’t if you promise me that you will never do it again, whatever it is.”