"Oh, Uncle John," she cried, "wouldn't that be glorious?"
Bertram's heart was too full for words: he simply turned head over heels.
"But you hard-hearted little beasts," their uncle expostulated.
"She's most frightfully strict," Viola explained.
"Yes, we shouldn't have been able to do anything decent if she'd come," Bertram added.
A poignant regret for that unknown governess suffering from her illegible complaint pierced John's mind. But perhaps she would recover, in which case she should spend her convalescence at Ambles with Harold; for if when in good health she was strict, after a severe illness she might be ferocious.
"Well, I'm not at all pleased with your attitude," John declared. "And you'll find me twice as strict as Miss Coldwell."
"Oh, no, we shan't," said Bertram with a smile of jovial incredulity.
John let this contradiction pass: it seemed an imprudent subject for debate. "And now, to-day being Sunday, you'd better get ready for church."
"Oh, but we always dress up on Sunday," Viola said.