"You mean without you; but you see they've not been accustomed to have a third in their games. I hope you're nice to them?"
"I don't want to have nuffin' to do with them. They laugh at me about the Chris'mas tree. You and me, Mummy, can be two as we've always been, and they can be just a two away from us."
"Oh, my darling," said Mrs. Inglefield, half laughing, yet with a perplexed face, "you mustn't talk so! This comes of bringing you up away from them. You all belong to me and to each other, and we must be a very happy little family. I can't talk to you any more now, so if you want to stay with me, get a picture-book from my table over there. There's that one you love about the boys in the Bible."
Noel got the book, and drawing a stool up by his mother's side, was quite happy till tea-time.
Chris and Diana appeared in very good spirits, and if Noel was rather silent, they did not seem to be impressed by it.
They were full of anticipation of going to Lady Alice Herbert's to tea the following day, and talked about it till bedtime.
Very great was their disappointment the next morning when their mother told them that she had received a letter from Lady Alice saying that, as the General was not very well, she would not ask the children, but only herself.
Diana pouted, Chris cried "What a shame!" and Noel stumped up and down the room in real anger.
"Never mind, chicks, she will ask you another day, I am sure, and perhaps it is just as well, for it looks like rain."
And rain it did in an hour's time. The children played contentedly in the nursery all the morning. They had their early dinner downstairs with their mother, and afterwards she took them up to her boudoir, and read a story to them till it was time for her to go off to the Hall. The car came for her a little before four o'clock, and the children watched her depart with envious eyes. They waved their hands to her, standing on the doorstep till they could see her no more, and then very reluctantly they went back to their nursery.