"Well, Judy, you go and sew up those rents, and put some buttons on your frock." Esther spoke with unusual determination.
Judy's eyes snapped and sparkled.
"'Is that a dagger that I see before me, the handle to my hand? Come, let me grasp it,'" she said saucily, snatching one of the pins from Esther's dress, fastening her own with it, and dropping a curtsey.
Esther reddened a little now.
"That's the General, Judy: he always pulls the buttons off my wrappers when I play with him. But I'm forgetting. Children, I have bad news for you."
There was a breathless silence. Everyone crowded round her knees.
"Sentence has been proclaimed," said Judy dramatically: "let us shave our heads and don sackcloth."
"Your father says he cannot allow such conduct to go unpunished, especially as you have all been unusually tiresome lately; therefore: you are all—"
"To be taken away and hanged by the neck until we are dead!"
"Be quiet, Judy. I have tried my best to beg you off, but it only makes him more vexed. He says you are the untidiest, most unruly lot of children in Sydney, and he will punish you each time you do anything, and—"