‘I’ve got some letters I must write,’ said Aunt Grace as they rose from the table, ‘but I shall have finished them before very long, and then I shall be very pleased to go on with “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”’
She went to the drawing-room, where Emmeline followed her, with the intention of writing an aggrieved letter to Mary, while Micky and Kitty repaired to the schoolroom on some business of their own.
Somehow Emmeline’s grievance did not seem quite so impressive when she came to write it down, or perhaps it was that her pen still travelled too slowly for her thoughts. In any case she grew bored presently, and wandered upstairs to the schoolroom to see what the twins were doing. Judging from the eager sound of their voices as she drew near the schoolroom door, it seemed to be something interesting.
She found them sitting on the floor, playing with their bricks.
‘Well, I never!’ she exclaimed with a very good imitation of Jane’s voice of righteous wrath. ‘To think of playing with bricks on Sunday! You know Mary never let us.’ Emmeline spoke in a quite sincere belief that it was her duty as an elder sister to keep the twins in the way that they should go, but perhaps her elder-sisterly mission was all the easier to-day because she was in a bad humour with the world in general.
The twins only giggled in an exasperating way. ‘Mary isn’t here now,’ sang out Micky.
‘And I’m sure Aunt Grace wouldn’t mind,’ added Kitty defiantly.
The hard lump which Emmeline knew so well at such times rose suddenly in her throat. So even the twins were going over to the enemy! ‘Well, of all the horrid, forgetting children!’ she exclaimed hotly, while the tears rushed to her eyes, and again the twins laughed in a provoking way.
‘Why, what’s happening here?’ asked Aunt Grace’s voice as she opened the schoolroom door.