him remember these theatricals. I don't forget.
I haven't forgot his bursting my football out of spite."

It is not pleasant to see one's own sins reflected on other faces. I
could not speak.

By the front door was Bobby. He was by way of looking out of the
portico window, but his swollen eyes could not possibly have seen
anything.

"Oh, Isobel, Isobel!" he sobbed, "Philip's gone, and taken the
D--d--d--dragon with him, and we're all m--m--m--miserable."

"Don't cry, Bobby," said I, kissing him. "Finish your cloak, and be
doing anything you can. I'm going to try and bring Philip back."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Isobel! If only he'll come back I don't
care what I do. Or I'll give up my parts if he wants them, and be a
scene-shifter, if you'll lend me your carpet-slippers, and make me a
paper cap."

"GOD has given you a very sweet temper, Bobby," said I,
solemnly. "I wish I had one like it."

"You're as good as gold," said Bobby. His loving hug added strength
to my resolutions, and I ran across the garden and jumped the ha-ha,
and followed Philip over the marsh. I do not know whether he heard my
steps when I came nearly up with him, but I fancy his pace slackened.
Not that he looked round. He was much too sulky.

Philip is a very good-looking boy, much handsomer than I am, though we
are alike. But the family curse disfigures his face when he is cross
more than any one's, and the back view of him is almost worse than the
front. His shoulders get so humped up, and his whole figure is stiff
with cross-grained obstinacy.

"I shall never hold out if he speaks as ungraciously as he looks,"
thought I in despair. "But I'll not give in till I can hold out no
longer."

"Philip!" I said. He turned round, and his face was no prettier to
look at than his shoulders.

"What do you want?" (in the costermonger tone.)

"I want you to come back, Philip"--(here I choked).

"I dare say," he sneered, "and you want the properties! But you've got
your play, and your amiable Charles, and your talented Alice, and your
ubiquitous Bobby. And the audience will be entertained with an
unexpected after-piece entitled--'The disobliging disobliged.'"

Oh it _was_ hard! I think if I had looked at Philip's face I must have
broken down, but I kept my eyes steadily on the crimson sun, which
loomed large through the marsh mists that lay upon the horizon, as I
answered with justifiable vehemence:

"I have a very bad temper, Philip" (I che