edges of the pavement, enjoying the cool and calm of the summer evening; up the steep hill where the milk-bottle had come to

their arrival be known, and burst into the house pell-mell; then stopped abruptly, almost tumbling over each other with the shock, and stared before them in silent, speechless amazement at a pile of luggage which filled the centre of the hall. Betty stepped back and

e caught sight of the bewildered, wondering quartette, her whole expression changed. She came to them, as Kitty said afterwards, as though there had bee

enetrating than a shout; and her face added,

ven while staggering under the blow they had just

t Pike?-to sta

nce, or she'll be crosser than she is now, if that's possible. She's as vexed as can be

o could have even dreamed of her coming t

nobody here to open it. And how was we to know what was inside of it; we can't see thr

of speaking of her aunt, but a common trouble was uni

her know yet

, m

Aunt Pike really c

talked. She said it didn't need a very clever person to see that 'twas high time somebody was here to look after things, instead of m

y gr

as she comes out of it," went on Emily. "A pretty t

e; having to sweep and dust seemed to her at that mom

e spar

Kitty. "She is sure to see it; it blow

ter do a bunk and clean ourselves up a bit before she sees us," and he set the

, save for eight very dirty shoes an

could. So, by the time the worthy lady was heard descending, they were all in the drawing-room, seated primly on the stiffest chairs they could find, and apparently absorbed in the books they gazed at with serious faces and furrowed brows. To the traine

le overdone. It was unfortunate, though, that they and Emily had forgotten to remove their dirty shoes from the hall, or to light the gas, for Aunt Pike, groping her way downstair

of the four faces, their cheeks g

my luggage," murmured D

e left it there,"

red Tony in a scared voice. "I jumped over them whe

at each other with gu

ious to shift all blame, "and you ran upstair

live here, it's best to be first favourite." At which unusual outburst on the part of her big brother Betty was so overcome that she collapsed on

ike, with a white face and an expression on it which said plainly that her mind w

king naturally that you two, at least, would be in bed, but I was told you were still racing the countr

aying anything that came into her

establishment when your poor father's letter reached me, and I felt that, no matter at wh

indignantly. "What a pity! for it would have told you we

So I confided Anna to the care of friends, and came, though at the greatest possible inconvenience, by the next train. And what," looking round severely at them all, "did I find on my arrival? No one in the house to greet me! My nephews and nieces

g out of window

most impertinent. Is she always so

ted Kitty. "I am afraid she would

on the bruises," he said, offering it to his aunt, "it'll take the pain out like

the fine crust of dirt and grease on it that it had accumulated during a long sojourn in the coach-house. But

e of the servants to clean the outside of the bottle, I shall be very

he purpose when she remembered that she had not one wi

ne-or sup?" asked Mrs.

ather is home, or we-or we come

itty coloured. "Well," she went on, "if you can induce the maids to give us a meal soon I shall be thankful, for I have had nothing s

To her relief she found that Fanny had returned; but Fanny was hot with the first outburst of indignation at the news

er best to make the supper-table presentable, and not a s

m," she said, enumerating thing after thing, designed, so it seemed to Kitty, expressly for the purpose of giving Au

ng for her, and I am sure father would rather she should have

you calls nothing. I calls it a-plenty and running over; and if w

ike it and can eat it, but Aunt Pike can't. You know the last

food out of his own mouth to them. The bit of fish I've got for master I'm going to keep for master. If anybody's got to have the indigestion it won't be him, not if I knows it

lse that was worrying. "I wish I had stayed in the woods," she thought crossly; "there would be peace there at any rate," and her mind wandered away to the river and the li

ferent mistress had come, she was not only beginning already to feel a little sad at the thought of parting from them all, but a lively desire to side with them against the common enemy. She failed quite to realize that

ice, wandered out and through the yard towards the garden. She felt she could

and what it would mean to them. She thought of their lazy mornings, when they lay in bed till the spirit moved them to get up; of the other mornings when they chose to rise early and go for a long walk to Lantig, or down to Trevoor, the stretch of desolate moorland which lay about a mile outside the town, and was so full of surprises-of unexpected dips and trickling streams, of dangerous bogs, and stores of fruits and berries and unknown delights-that, well though they knew it, the

ld turn Prue into the hedge to graze, while she herself would stay in the carriage and read, or dismount and climb some hedge, or tree, or gate, and gaze about her, or lie on the heather, t