“I’m not; I’m only thinking,” he answered when Robert asked him what he was so grumpy about. “I’ll tell you when I’ve thought it all out.”
“If it’s about the Amulet I don’t want to hear it,” said Jane.
“Nobody asked you to,” retorted Cyril mildly, “and I haven’t finished my inside thinking about it yet. Let’s go to Kew in the meantime.”
“I’d rather go in a steamer,” said Robert; and the girls laughed.
“That’s right,” said Cyril, “_be_ funny. I would.”
“I wouldn’t think, Squirrel, if it hurts you so,” said Robert kindly.
“Oh, shut up,” said Cyril, “or else talk about Kew.”
“I want to see the palms there,” said Anthea hastily, “to see if they’re anything like the ones on the island where we united the Cook and the Burglar by the Reverend Half-Curate.”
All disagreeableness was swept away in a pleasant tide of recollections, and “Do you remember...?” they said. “Have you forgotten...?”
“My hat!” remarked Cyril pensively, as the flood of reminiscence ebbed a little; “we have had some times.”
“Don’t let’s have any more,” said Jane anxiously.
“That’s what I was thinking about,” Cyril replied; and just then they heard the Little Black Girl sniff. She was quite close to them.
She was not really a little black girl. She was shabby and not very clean, and she had been crying so much that you could hardly see, through the narrow chink between her swollen lids, how very blue her eyes were. It was her dress that was black, and it was too big and too long for her, and she wore a speckled black-ribboned sailor hat that would have fitted a much bigger head than her little flaxen one. And she stood looking at the children and sniffing.
“Oh, dear!” said Anthea, jumping up. “Whatever is the matter?”
She put her hand on the little girl’s arm. It was rudely shaken off.
“You leave me be,” said the little girl. “I ain’t doing nothing to you.”
“But what is it?” Anthea asked. “Has someone been hurting you?”
“What’s that to you?” said the little girl fiercely. “_You’re_ all right.”
“Come away,” said Robert, pulling at Anthea’s sleeve. “She’s a nasty, rude little kid.”
“Oh, no,” said Anthea. “She’s only dreadfully unhappy. What is it?” she asked again.
“Oh, _you’re_ all right,” the child repeated; “_you_ ain’t agoin’ to the Union.”