"Oh, well, Mums—I mean, he treats it as if it could think and hear and see, and then he gets so cross if we laugh at him."
"Don't laugh at him, and then he won't be cross. Try to sympathize with his ideas. I want my trio to be a united one—I want you all to love one another."
Diana looked very sober, then she took her mother's hand and laid it under her cheek.
"I'll try and be nice to him," she said earnestly; "but I couldn't mother him. I couldn't be like you, Mums, if I tried hard all my life. There's nobody like you in the world!"
With which emphatic utterance Mrs. Inglefield could not deal. She kissed her little daughter, and departed.
[CHAPTER XIII]
Their Mother's Birthday
Mrs. Inglefield's birthday dawned very brightly. The birthday presents were given to her before breakfast, and she expressed herself as peculiarly pleased and satisfied with each.
Then she told her children of the treat that she proposed to give them. She had ordered a car to come for them all at ten o'clock, and they were going to drive away to the sea, which was just twenty miles away.
"It is a big car and we have room for Inez. Could you go and fetch her, Chris?"