im that he had forbidden Erebus to let Wiggins
go on the ice; and when Mr. Carrington began to thank him for saving
him, he insisted on giving all the credit to Erebus.

Mr. Carrington made him also take a dose of ammoniated quinine, and
then further fortified him with cake and very agreeable port wine. On
his way home the Terror went briskly round by Pringle's pond and picked
up the skates and garments that had been left there. When he reached
home he found that Erebus was in bed. She seemed little the worse for
lying with her arms and chest in that icy water, keeping Wiggins
afloat; and when she learned that Wiggins also seemed none the worse
and was sleeping peacefully, she ate her lunch with a fair appetite.

The Terror did not point out that all the trouble had sprung from her
disregard for his instructions; he only said: "I just told Mr.
Carrington that Wiggins was already in the water when I got to the
pond."

"That was awfully decent of you," said Erebus after a pause in which
she had gathered the full bearing of his reticence.

CHAPTER VIII

AND THE MUTTLE DEEPING PEACHES

The dreadful fright she had suffered did not throw a cloud over the
spirit of Erebus for as long as might have been expected. She was as
quick as any one to realize that all's well that ends well; and Wiggins
escaped lightly, with a couple of days in bed. The adventure, however,
induced a change in her attitude to him; she was far less condescending
with him than she had been; indeed she seemed to have acquired
something of a proprietary interest in him and was uncommonly
solicitous for his welfare. To such a point did this solicitude go
that more than once he remonstrated bitterly with her for fussing about
him.

During the rest of the winter, the spring and the early summer, their
lives followed an even tenor: they did their lessons; they played their
games; then tended the inmates of the cats' home, selling them as they
grew big, and replacing the sold with threepenny kittens just able to
lap.

In the spring they fished the free water of the Whittle, the little
trout-stream that runs through the estate of the Morgans of Muttle
Deeping Grange. The free water runs for rather more than half a mile
on the Little Deeping side of Muttle Deeping; and the Twins fished it
with an assiduity and a skill which set the villagers grumbling that
they left no fish for any one else. Also the Twins tried to get leave
to fish Sir Jam