For the rest of the day the children were rather silent and preoccupied. It was not nearly so much fun adopting Diamond Jubilee in the fashion Aunt Grace suggested as when his presence in the neighbourhood had involved the perils and delights of a plot; but they were good children in the main, and Aunt Grace’s suggestions had a way of sticking.
Emmeline came up to the schoolroom that evening, when the twins were drinking their supper-milk, and began fidgeting with the blind-tassel. ‘After all,’ she remarked abruptly, ‘I suppose when you’ve once adopted a person you’re rather bound to go on with it if you can, even if it doesn’t turn out quite as beautiful and romantic as you thought it would be.’
‘And dogs are awfully good judges of character,’ remarked Kitty thoughtfully. ‘Everybody says so.’
‘Well,’ said Micky gloomily, ‘I suppose it doesn’t really much matter which sort of donkey we get!’
‘Emmeline,’ said Kitty, ‘you’ll wait to tell Aunt Grace when we’re there, won’t you?’
‘Let’s all go downstairs again and tell her now!’ said Micky, more cheerfully. Micky would have been reconciled to most things so long as they gave him a good excuse for going downstairs again after the doom of bedtime had been pronounced.
‘Well,’ remarked Mr. Faulkner, ‘things certainly run in families.’ He had come to call one afternoon, and found the whole party out except Emmeline, who was staying in with a cold. They had been discussing the re-adoption of Diamond Jubilee.
‘How do you mean?’ asked Emmeline.
‘I was thinking of your Aunt Grace,’ said Mr. Faulkner, between two puffs of his pipe, ‘and how she first took up practical philanthropy at the mature age of twelve.’