reminiscence.

"Well," said Perks, "you won't want to be bothered with gardening just
this minute, I dare say. You show me where your garden is, and I'll
pop the bits of stuff in for you. And I'll hang about, if I may make so
free, to see the Doctor as he comes out and hear what he says. You cheer
up, Missie. I lay a pound he ain't hurt, not to speak of."

But he was. The Doctor came and looked at the foot and bandaged it
beautifully, and said that Peter must not put it to the ground for at
least a week.

"He won't be lame, or have to wear crutches or a lump on his foot, will
he?" whispered Bobbie, breathlessly, at the door.

"My aunt! No!" said Dr. Forrest; "he'll be as nimble as ever on his pins
in a fortnight. Don't you worry, little Mother Goose."

It was when Mother had gone to the gate with the Doctor to take his last
instructions and Phyllis was filling the kettle for tea, that Peter and
Bobbie found themselves alone.

"He says you won't be lame or anything," said Bobbie.

"Oh, course I shan't, silly," said Peter, very much relieved all the
same.

"Oh, Peter, I AM so sorry," said Bobbie, after a pause.

"That's all right," said Peter, gruffly.

"It was ALL my fault," said Bobbie.

"Rot," said Peter.

"If we hadn't quarrelled, it wouldn't have happened. I knew it was wrong
to quarrel. I wanted to say so, but somehow I couldn't."

"Don't drivel," said Peter. "I shouldn't have stopped if you HAD said
it. Not likely. And besides, us rowing hadn't anything to do with it.
I might have caught my foot in the hoe, or taken off my fingers in the
chaff-cutting machine or blown my nose off with fireworks. It would have
been hurt just the same whether we'd been rowing or not."

"But I knew it was wrong to quarrel," said Bobbie, in tears, "and now
you're hurt and--"

"Now look here," said Peter, firmly, "you just dry up. If you're not
careful, you'll turn into a beastly little Sunday-school prig, so I tell
you."

"I don't mean to be a prig. But it's so hard not to be when you're
really trying to be good."

(The Gentle Reader may perhaps have suffered from this difficulty.)

"Not it," said Peter; "it's a jolly good thing it wasn't you was hurt.
I'm glad it was ME. There! If it had been you, you'd have been lying
on the sofa looking like a suffering angel and being the light of the
anxious household and all that. And I couldn't have stood it."

"No, I shouldn't," said Bobbie.

"Yes, you would," said Pe