"Sure, it would make any son's blood boil, to see his father hit!" cried
I; and I saw that Madeleine sympathized with me.

"Why, then, let his blood cool again," said my father, jocularly. "Tush,
many a school-boy gets a worse hurt than this, and makes no moan. There!
your mother has made all right, and I feel no smart. Let us say no more
about it."

I thought he strikingly acted on our Lord's axiom of "If thine enemy
smite thee on the one cheek, offer him the other," but could not just
then enter into it. I longed to give those rascals a good beating.

"Now, then, I'll set the tune again," said I, affecting composure.

But, "No, no," said the girls simultaneously; and "No, no," said my dear
mother. "Don't you see," she continued, "I have all this broken glass to
pick up? If you will do me a real kindness, you will step round to the
glazier, the first thing in the morning, and get him to mend the window
before breakfast."

"I'll go at once," said I; but "No, no," was again the word. My father
laid his hand firmly on my right arm, and Madeleine hers on my left.
Though her touch was as light as a snow-flake, I would not have shaken
it off for the world.

"The streets are unquiet to-night," said my father, "and I mean no one
to go forth till the girls return home, when we will see them safely to
their door; going out the back way."