"And I'm sure," said Aunt Christie, when she heard he was coming, "I
should never care about the mischief he leads the little ones into when
he's well, if he could breathe like other people when he's ill; you may
hear him half over the house when he has his asthma."
Crayshaw came by the express train in the afternoon, and was met by the
young Mortimers in the close carriage. He was nearly fifteen, and a
strange contrast to Johnny, whose perfect health, ardent joyousness, and
lumbering proportions never were so observable as beside the clear-cut
face of the other, the slow gait, an expression of countenance at once
audacious, keen, and sweet, together with that peculiar shadow under the
eyelids which some people consider to betoken an early death.
Crayshaw was happily quite well that afternoon, and accordingly very
noisy doings went on; Miss Crampton was away for her short Easter
holiday, and Aunt Christie did not interfere if she could help it when
Johnny was at home.
That night Master Augustus John Mortimer, his friend, and all the family
were early asleep; not so the next.
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