"Hurry up, Barbara. You're so slow."
"I don't know who to put."
Alex began to whisper, and Barbara at once said:
"Nurse doesn't allow us to whisper. It's bad manners."
"You horrid little prig!"
Alex was furious. Barbara's priggishness always put her into a temper, because she felt it, unconsciously, to be a reflection on her own infallibility as the eldest.
"Miss Barbara," said Emily angrily, "it's not for you to say what Nurse allows or doesn't allow; I'm looking after you now. The idea, indeed!"
Barbara's pale, pointed little face grew very red, but she did not cry, as Alex, in spite of her twelve years, would almost certainly have cried at such a snub.
She set her mouth vindictively and shot a very angry look at Alex out of her blue eyes. Then she wrote something on the slip of paper, shielding it with her hand so that her sister could not read it.
Cedric was printing in large capitals, easily legible, but no one was interested in what Cedric wrote.