Isn't he cross, though ?" added Charlie, as Mac was heard growling about his "confounded head." "She will manage him; but it's mean in us to rumple him up and then leave her to smooth him down.

I'd go and help, but I don't know how," said Archie, looking much depressed, for he was a conscientious fellow, and blamed himself for his want of thought.
"No, more do I.Odd, isn't it, what a knack women have for taking care of sick folks ?" and Charlie fell a-musing over this undeniable fact.
"She has been ever so good to Mac," began Steve, in a self-reproachful tone.
"Better than his own brother, hey ?" cut in Archie, finding relief for his own regret in the delinquencies of another.
"Well, you needn't preach; you didn't any of you do any more, and you might have, for Mac likes you better than he does me.

I always fret him, he says, and it isn't my fault if I am a quiddle," protested Steve, in self-defence.
"We have all been selfish and neglected him, so we won't fight about it, but try and do better," said Archie, generously taking more than his share of blame, for he had been less inattentive than either of the others.
"Rose has stood by him like a good one, and it's no wonder he likes to have her round best.

I should myself if I was down on my luck as he is," put in Charlie, feeling that he really had not done "the little thing" justice.
"I'll tell you what it is, boys we haven't been half good enough to Rose, and we've got to make it up to her somehow," said Archie, who had a very manly sense of honour about paying his debts, even to a girl.
"I'm awfully sorry I made fun of her doll when Jamie lugged it out; and I called her 'baby bunting' when she cried over the dead kitten.

Girls are such geese sometimes, I can't help it," said Steve, confessing his transgressions handsomely, and feeling quite ready to atone for them if he only knew how.
"I'll go down on my knees and beg her pardon for treating her as if she was a child.