right, because H. O.'s paint-box is the French
kind, with Couleurs non Veneneuses on it. This means you may suck your
brushes if you want to, or even your paints if you are a very little
boy.

It was rather jolly while Noel had that cold. He had a fire in his
bedroom which opens out of Dicky's and Oswald's, and the girls used to
read aloud to Noel all day; they will not read aloud to you when you are
well. Father was away at Liverpool on business, and Albert's uncle was
at Hastings. We were rather glad of this, because we wished to give
all the medicines a fair trial, and grown-ups are but too fond of
interfering. As if we should have given him anything poisonous!

His cold went on--it was bad in his head, but it was not one of the kind
when he has to have poultices and can't sit up in bed. But when it had
been in his head nearly a week, Oswald happened to tumble over Alice on
the stairs. When we got up she was crying.

'Don't cry silly!' said Oswald; 'you know I didn't hurt you.' I was very
sorry if I had hurt her, but you ought not to sit on the stairs in the
dark and let other people tumble over you. You ought to remember how
beastly it is for them if they do hurt you.

'Oh, it's not that, Oswald,' Alice said. 'Don't be a pig! I am so
miserable. Do be kind to me.'

So Oswald thumped her on the back and told her to shut up.

'It's about Noel,' she said. 'I'm sure he's very ill; and playing about
with medicines is all very well, but I know he's ill, and Eliza won't
send for the doctor: she says it's only a cold. And I know the doctor's
bills are awful. I heard Father telling Aunt Emily so in the summer. But
he _is_ ill, and perhaps he'll die or something.'

Then she began to cry again. Oswald thumped her again, because he knows
how a good brother ought to behave, and said, 'Cheer up.' If we had been
in a book Oswald would have embraced his little sister tenderly, and
mingled his tears with hers.

Then Oswald said, 'Why not write to Father?'

And she cried more and said, 'I've lost the paper with the address. H.
O. had it to draw on the back of, and I can't find it now; I've looked
everywhere. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. No I won't. But I'm
going out. Don't tell the others. And I say, Oswald, do pretend I'm in
if Eliza asks. Promise.'

'Tell me what you're going to do,' I said. But she said 'No'; and there
was a good reason why not. So I said I wouldn't promise if it came to
that. Of course I meant