Part 36

"Did it hurt very much, my Imp?" I inquired, as I tossed the stick aside. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, while I turned to light my pipe, wasting three matches quite fruitlessly.

"Uncle Dick," he burst out at last, struggling manfully against his sobs, "I--I'm awfull'--sorry--"

"Oh, its all right now, Imp. Shake hands!" Joyfully the little, grimy fingers clasped mine, and from that moment I think there grew up between us a new understanding.

"Why, Imp, my darling, you're crying!" exclaimed a voice, and with a rustle of skirts Lisbeth was down before him on her knees.

"I know I am--'cause I'm awfull' sorry--an' Uncle Dick's whipped my hands--an' I'm glad!"

"Whipped your hands?" cried Lisbeth, clasping him closer, and glaring at me, "Whipped your hands--how dare he! What for?"

"'Cause I cut the rope an' let the boat go away with you, an' you might have been drowned dead in the weir, an' I'm awfull' glad Uncle Dick whipped me."

"O-h-h!" exclaimed Lisbeth, and it was a very long drawn "oh!" indeed.

"I don't know what made me do it," continued the imp. "I 'specks it was my new knife--it was so nice an sharp, you know."

"Well, it's all right now, my Imp," I said, fumbling for a match in a singularly clumsy manner. "If you ask me, I think we are all better friends than ever--or should be. I know I should be fonder of your Auntie Lisbeth even than before, and take greater care of her, if I were you. And--and now take her in to tea, my Imp, and--and see that she has plenty to eat," and lifting my hat I turned away. But Lisbeth was beside me, and her hand was on my arm before I had gone a yard.

"We are having tea in the same old place--under the trees. If you would care to--to--would you?"

"Yes, do--oh do, Uncle Dick!" cried the Imp. "I'll go and tell Jane to set a place for you," and he bounded off.

"I didn't hit him very hard," I said, breaking a somewhat awkward silence; "but you see there are some things a gentleman cannot do. I think he understands now."

"Oh, Dick!" she said very softly; "and to think I could imagine you had done such a thing--you; and to think that you should let me think you had done such a thing--and all to shield that Imp? Oh, Dick! no wonder he is so fond of you. He never talks of any one but you--I grow quite jealous sometimes. But, Dick, how did you get into that boat?"

"By means of a tree with 'stickie-out' branches."

"Do you mean to say--"

"That, as I told you before, I dropped in, as it were."

"But supposing you had slipped?"

"But I didn't."

"And you can't swim a stroke!"

"Not that I know of."

"Oh, Dick! can you ever forgive me?"

"On three conditions."

"Well?"

"First, that you let me remember everything you said to me while we were drifting down to the river."

"That depends, Dick. And the second?"

"The second lies in the fact that not far from the village of Down, in Kent, there stands an old house--a quaint old place that is badly in want of some one to live in it--an old house that is lonely for a woman's sweet presence and gentle, busy hands, Lisbeth!"

"And the third?" she asked very softly.