I don’t know how long I stopped there, but I didn’t have any tea nor supper either, and I cried so that my face felt quite stiff. At last, as it was getting dark, Mother came in. She didn’t see me, but she said my name softly; that made me feel dreadful. So I just sobbed out, “Is he dead like Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper?” But suddenly Mother took me up in her arms. “Oh, no, no, my poor little girl,” she said. “He isn’t very badly burnt, he only fainted.” Then she carried me downstairs, just as if I were one of the little ones, and when she saw my hands she quite cried out. She put oil and cotton-wool on to them, and it was lovely, and she brought me some soup and helped me to undress. I felt much happier. First of all, though, I went in to see Humphrey. He was in bed, and he didn’t look very different. Directly he saw me, he called out, “Do you know that you’ve got seven skins? The doctor told me so; and I’m playing that I’m a wounded fireman in the hospital, but it’s no fun without you.” I don’t think Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper could have said anything nicer. II SAMSON AND DELILAH (Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission) Boys with long hair are always silly, and Lionel was one of the silliest. I don’t know whether it was having the curls that had done it, or if he had been born stupid, but any way he used to make a most awful fuss if he knocked himself or cut his finger, and he liked to have his hands clean, and cried if you didn’t always play just what he wanted. Another peculiar thing about him was that he seemed to enjoy it, if visitors noticed him or admired his hair, instead of escaping as any of us would have done. Fortunately they don’t pay much attention to us, because our hair is short. At least mine and Humphrey’s is, and though Violet’s has been allowed to grow, it is quite straight, and an ugly sort of lighty brown in colour. As for Teddy, he is only four, so his hair doesn’t count. Though I’ve spoken of Lionel here by his proper name, we didn’t call him that. It was much too long, and so we christened him “Macassar Oil,” because I discovered that the first part of Lionel written backwards spells oil, and Cousin Florence does put stuff on his hair. She didn’t seem a bit pleased though, when I explained it to her, though I don’t believe she’d have ever thought of it for herself. Cousin Florence is Lionel’s mother, and they’ve always lived in India, so we children had never seen them until they came to stay with us.