‘Mop it up, Alice,’ said Aunt Jane to the younger girl. ‘No don’t come up, Ada; it is too wet for you. It is only a misdirected experiment in hydraulics.’
‘I told him not,’ said Clement Varley, thinking affairs serious.
‘Fergus, I am shocked at you,’ said Gillian sternly. ‘You are frightfully wet. You must be sent to bed.’
‘You must go and change,’ said Aunt Jane, preventing the howl about to break forth. ‘My dear boy, that tap must be let alone. We can’t have cataracts on the stairs.’
‘I didn’t mean it, Aunt Jane; I thought it was an invention,’ said Fergus.
‘I know; but another time come and ask me where to try your experiments. Go and take off those clothes; and you, Clement, you are soaking too. Run home at once.’
Gillian, much scandalised, broke out—
‘It is very naughty. At home, he would be sent to bed at once.’
‘I am not Mrs. Halfpenny, Gillian,’ said Aunt Jane coldly.
‘Jane has a soft spot for inventions, for Maurice’s sake,’ said her sister.