In the corner, stiff, uncomfortable, and with faces that expressed puzzled anxiety, sat five silent children.
Mrs. Wentworth was the first to recover presence of mind.
"There, there, dears, it's all right," she began a little hysterically. "You can call it a little game we were playing. You may all run outdoors now."
As the last white apron fluttered through the door she dropped limply into a chair.
"James, what in the world are we going to do?" she demanded.
"Give it up!" said the man, his hands in his pockets—James Wentworth's vocabulary had grown twenty years younger in the last two weeks.
"But really, it's serious!"
"It certainly is."
"But what shall we do?"
The man took his hands from his pockets and waved them in a manner that would indicate entire irresponsibility.