"Don't encourage her in naughtiness, Digby. She is very disobedient to come here at all.—Now, Edith."
Poor Edith obeyed at once, sobbing out, "I only said I was glad we were not so poor as our cousins; and they all laughed at me—at least Ralph and Cyril did—and said if papa died—"
"That will do, Edith. You are not to go down to disturb your brothers again. The next time I find you in this room of an evening, I shall punish you severely. Run away to bed. Aunt Betha ought to have called you by this time; and what can Sarah be thinking of?"
Then Mrs. Wilton kissed her little girl, and returned to the drawing-room, where Louise was reading by the bright gaslight.
"You have four burners lighted, Louise. It is quite unnecessary," and Mrs. Wilton's height made it easy for her to turn down two of the burners in the glass chandelier.
"What a noise the boys have been making downstairs!" Louise said. "I am sure I hope we shall not have them here all the holidays. Are we not going to Torquay or Ilfracombe?"
"Decidedly not en masse," Mrs. Wilton said. "Lodgings by the sea are so fearfully expensive."
"Well," said Louise, "I think it is very dull staying in Roxburgh all the summer, and the boys are so tiresome. If we had only a proper tennis-court; playing in the square is so disagreeable."
"You are very discontented, Louise," said her mother. "Pray, do not grumble any more."
Mrs. Wilton sat down to write a letter, and no more was said till Kate came in with Digby. They were great friends, and Digby was the generally acknowledged good-temper of the family. I am afraid it was too much the motto of each of the doctor's children, "Every one for himself." There could not be said to be one really unselfish person of that household. But Digby and Kate had more thought for others than the rest of the brothers and sisters, and were naturally better tempered and contented.