"Oh, do shut up, 'Bumps'," Jack Everett said good-naturedly. "You
haven't killed yourself and you're much too big for Meg to carry."
But the small boy clung desperately to his sister, his fat arms about
her neck and his legs about her waist until with difficulty she was able
to get him upstairs and into her own room.
He was probably about three feet high and almost as broad, between three
and four years old, with brown hair that would stand up in a pompadour
simply because it was too stiff to lie down, a perfectly insignificant
nose, a Cupid's bow of a mouth and two large grave blue eyes, as
innocent of mischief as any lamb's.
At the present moment, however, his eyes were simply raining tears, as
though they had their source in a cloudburst, and over one of them a
bump appeared as large as an egg. Indeed, Horace Virgil, named for his
Professor father's favorite Latin poets, had been rechristened 'Bumps'
by his older brother and was more commonly known by that title.
Meg kept glancing at the clock as she dampened her small brother's
forehead with witch hazel. "I am afraid I can't go," she said in a
disappointed tone, "and I am dreadfully sorry because I promised. But
if I leave Horace with the servants now he will howl himself ill.
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