"Are you going to look for lodgings for Aunt Emily, mother?" Digby asked.
Mrs. Wilton looked up from her writing as if the idea were a new one to her.
"No, my dear, I shall not have time to do so. I am engaged to take Louise and Kate to a tennis-party at Cawfield to-morrow."
"Digby, I wish you would not sit on that sofa. Look what you have done to the cover."
Digby changed his seat from the sofa to a straw chair, one of those half-circular ones with cushions which creak at every movement.
"O Digby, do pray be quiet," said Louise irritably. "It does fidget me to hear that noise."
"You will be an old maid to a certainty, Louise," said her brother, "if you are so cantankerous,—another Aunt Betha, only not half as good.—Come on, Kate; let us have a game of backgammon."
"Not in here!" exclaimed Louise. "I hate the rattling of the dice. Pray go into the back drawing-room."
"Yes, let us go there," said Kate, "in peace."
"Peace! There is none in this house," said Digby as he followed Kate, who jumped up on a chair to light the gas, and came down with a thud on the floor, when she had achieved her object, which shook the glass-drops of both chandeliers ominously.