mained there hoping for
a chance to explain and apologise, and so appease the irate young lady,
who had suddenly turned the tables and clattered them about their ears.

As they waited, they observed her proceedings through the half-open
door, and commented upon them briefly but expressively, feeling quite
bowed down with remorse at the harm they had innocently done.

"She's put the room to rights in a jiffey. What jacks we were to let
those dogs in and kick up such a row," observed Steve, after a prolonged
peep.

"The poor old Worm turns as if she was treading on him instead of
cuddling him like a pussy cat. Isn't he cross, though?" added Charlie,
as Mac was heard growling about his "confounded head."

"She will manage him; but it's mean in us to rumple him up and then
leave her to smooth him down. I'd go and help, but I don't know how,"
said Archie, looking much depressed, for he was a conscientious fellow,
and blamed himself for his want of thought.

"No, more do I. Odd, isn't it, what a knack women have for taking care
of sick folks?" and Charlie fell a-musing over this undeniable fact.

"She has been ever so good to Mac," began Steve, in a self-reproachful
tone.

"Better than his own brother, hey?" cut in Archie, finding relief for
his own regret in the delinquencies of another.

"Well, you needn't preach; you didn't any of you do any more, and you
might have, for Mac likes you better than he does me. I always fret him,
he says, and it isn't my fault if I am a quiddle," protested Steve, in
self-defence.

"We have all been selfish and neglected him, so we won't fight about
it, but try and do better," said Archie, generously taking more than
his share of blame, for he had been less inattentive than either of the
others.

"Rose has stood by him like a good one, and it's no wonder he likes to
have her round best. I should myself if I was down on my luck as he is,"
put in Charlie, feeling that he really had not done "the little thing"
justice.

"I'll tell you what it is, boys we haven't been half good enough to
Rose, and we've got to make it up to her somehow," said Archie, who had
a very manly sense of honour about paying his debts, even to a girl.

"I'm awfully sorry I made fun of her doll when Jamie lugged it out; and
I called her 'baby bunting' when she cried over the dead kitten. Girls
are such geese sometimes, I can't help it," said Steve, confessing his
transgressions handsomely, and feeling quite r