He flung his skinny arms round
her bent neck.
She looked up and smiled wanly. "No, Timmy, I shall never be able to say
that, however naughty you may be."
But Timmy was not to be let off yet.
"What happened to-day has hurt me very, very much," she went on. "It will
be a long time before I shall feel on the old, happy terms with Jack
again. Without knowing it, Timmy, you've pierced your mother's heart."
But even as she uttered these, to Timmy, dreadful words, Janet Tosswill
got up, and dried her eyes. "Now then, we must go and see about Josephine
being shut up in some place of safety, where she and her kittens will not
offend the eyes of Jack and Rosamund. How about the old stable?"
She was her own calm, satirical, determined self again. But Timmy felt,
perhaps for the first time in his life, deeply conscious of sin. His
mother's phrase made him feel very uneasy. Had he really pierced her
heart--could a mother's heart be permanently injured by a wicked child?
It was a very mournful, dejected, anxious boy who walked into the kitchen
behind Janet Tosswill.
Timmy had a very vivid imagination, and during the drive back he had
amused himself by visualising the scene when he would place Josephine and
her kittens in their own delightful, roomy basket in the scullery.
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