Indeed Arthur would come into my room and talk about compost after I had gone to bed.
Father's farming man was always much more good-natured to us than John ever was.

He would give us anything we wanted.

Warm milk when the cows were milked, or sweet-pea sticks, or bran to stuff the dolls' pillows.
I've known him take his hedging-bill, in his dinner-hour, and cut fuel for our beacon-fire, when we were playing at a French Invasion.
Nothing could be kinder.
Perhaps we do not tease him so much as we tease John.

But when I say that, Arthur says, "Now, Mary, that's just how you explain away things.

The real difference between John and Michael is, that Michael is good-natured and John is not.