"There isn't any big sea near here," he said; "I only said if there was. It's just that I am so very midderable. I wish Nurse hadn't got ill." "Oh, so do I," said Pamela fervently. By this time they had reached Spy Tower. Pamela seated herself discreetly on the bench, though it was so much too high for her that her short legs dangled in the air. Duke established himself on the ground in front of her. It was a very still day--more like late summer than spring--hardly a leaf stirred, and in the distance various sounds, the far-off barking of a dog, the faint crowing and cackling of cocks and hens, the voices, subdued to softness, "of the village boys and girls at play," all mingled together pleasantly. The children were too young to explain to themselves the pleasant influences about them, of the soft sunshine and the cloudless sky, seen through the network of branches overhead, of the balmy air and sweet murmurs of bird and insect life rejoicing in the spring-time; but they felt them nevertheless. "How very happy us would have been to-day if it hadn't been for the bowl being brokened," said Duke. "No, it began before that," said Pamela. "It was the not telling Grandmamma. I fink that was the real naughty, bruvver. I don't _fink_ Grandmamma would have minded so much us giving the bread and milk to Toby." "Her wouldn't have given us any treat," objected Duke. "Well, that wouldn't have mattered very much for once. And perhaps it would have been a good fing; _perhaps_ Grandmamma would have told Cook not to send up quite so much, and----" "Why do you say that _now_?" said Duke rather crossly; "it's only making it all worser and worser. I wish----" But what Duke wished was never to be known, for just at that moment sounds coming down the lane, evidently drawing nearer and nearer, made him start up and peep out from behind the few thin low-growing shrubs at the top of the wall. "Hush, sister," he said, quite forgetting that it was himself and not "sister" who had been speaking,--"there are _such_ funny people coming down the lane. Come here, close by me; there, you can see them--don't they look funny?"