Well, Humphrey was certainly very nice; he caught hold of my hand. “Molly,” he said very slowly, and wagging his head like he always does; “Molly, it would be a gweat welief onto my mind to know if Lady Flowence Gwendoline escaped fwom the wobber’s cave, but I’m going to wait till to-mowow.” It’s horrid for him not being able to say his “r’s” properly, when he’s nearly nine and a quarter, and Ted who is only five can talk as if he were grown up. Humph minds so much though, that we pretend not to notice it. Any way I don’t believe it’s a bit of good his putting rubber bands round his tongue, to curl it to the right shape, like we found him in bed one night. He’s been happier, though, since Mother told him we all had our bundles of affliction to carry, and that not being able to say his “r’s” was in his bundle. And if it were heavy, Mother said, he mustn’t grumble, but just step out more bravely. I’m sure, though, it isn’t a bit heavier than having hair that will get untidy, and to stand still and not get impatient while it’s being brushed, is a very difficult sort of stepping out. All this time Humphrey had been squeezing my hand harder and harder, and now he said, “I’ve thought of a lovely new torture that I know you’ll like. I thought of it all myself in church. It’s cutting off your head and tying it onto a wampant horse and then dancing.” I didn’t know what to say, because of course he was thinking of Salome, whom we’d had the second lesson about, and Mother doesn’t like us acting things out of the Bible, but just then we saw a bush of burs. We always like to have burs, because they’re so convenient to put in one another’s hair and down people’s backs and nice tortury things of that sort; these, though, grew right in the middle of a bed of nettles. “Disagweable things,” said Humphrey. But when I saw the nettles I remembered more than ever about the duties on one’s path, and how I’d promised Mother to try and be unselfish, and I thought perhaps this would make up for some of the times I hadn’t been. Besides, I thought how astonished Humphrey would be at my bravery. So I just pretended that I was the Black Prince scaling the walls of Calais, and I dashed into the stinging-nettles. I forgot, though, that the Prince had got his armour on, and we’d gone into summer stockings that day, at least the other three wear socks, but, of course, I’m too old. But by thinking I was Joan of Arc as well, I got the burs, and when I came out Humphrey was so astonished, he couldn’t say anything at all, particularly when I gave them all to him. I didn’t keep a single one.