Dick cleared up first, with no sign of the tempest but a slight mist
through which his native sunshine glimmered pensively.
"Don't dear, don't cry so; it will make you sick, and won't do any
good, for things will come right, or I'll make 'em, and we'll be
comfortable all round."
"No, we never can be as we were, and it's all my fault. I've
betrayed Fan's confidence, I've spoiled your little romance, I've
been a thoughtless, wicked girl, I've lost August; and, oh, dear me,
I wish I was dead!" with which funereal climax Dolly cried so
despairingly that, like the youngest Miss Pecksniff, she was indeed
"a gushing creature."
"Oh, come now, don't be dismal, and blame yourself for every trouble
under the sun. Sit down and talk it over, and see what can be done.
Poor old girl, I forgave you the notes, and say I _was_ wrong to
meddle with Bopp. I got you into the scrape, and I'll get you out if
the sky don't fall, or Bopp blow his brains out, like a second
Werther, before to-morrow."
Dick drew the animated fountain to the wide chair, where they had
sat together since they were born, wiped her eyes, laid her wet
cheek against his own, and patted her back, with an idea that it was
soothing to babies, and why not to girls?
"I wish mother was at home," sighed Dolly, longing for that port
which was always a haven of refuge in domestic squalls like this.
"Write, and tell her not to stay till Saturday.
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