| ILLUSTRATIONS | ||
| PAGE | ||
| ‘May I–may I have all that?’ | [27] | |
| ‘Look here, Babs,’ she began, smoothing the mop of tangled hair | [45] | |
| ‘What in the name of wonder are you children doing down there?’ | [99] | |
| Five heads suddenly appeared at the open window | [108] | |
| ‘Dear me!’ he said, slightly taken aback | [175] | |
| ‘Hullo!’ said Jean. ‘What’s the matter?’ | [184] | |
| ‘Tell me, Herr Doktor’ | [261] | |
| ‘So he got Jill’ | [310] | |
CHAPTER I
IN A LONDON SCHOOLROOM
‘It’s no good,’ sighed Barbara, looking disconsolately round the room; ‘we shall never get straight in time. Don’t you think we had better leave it, and let Auntie Anna see us as we really are? She will only be disappointed afterwards, if we begin by being tidy; and I don’t like disappointing people, do you?’
There was a shout of laughter when she finished speaking, and Barbara frowned. She never knew why the boys laughed at her when she tried to explain her reasons for doing things, but they always did.
‘Is that why you have put on your very shortest frock?’ asked Wilfred, who was brewing something in a saucepan over the fire. ‘I believe you think that if Auntie Anna saw you for the first time in your Sunday frock, she might suppose you were a nice, proper little girl, instead of––’
Barbara seized the sofa cushion and aimed it at him threateningly. ‘Instead of what?’ she demanded.
Wilfred was at a disadvantage, owing to his position as well as to the precious quality of the liquid in the saucepan; and he felt it wiser to make terms. ‘Well,’ he observed, ‘you might at least have put on a longer frock for the credit of the family; now, mightn’t you?’
Barbara looked down at her blue serge skirt, edged with certain rows of white braid that only made it look shorter; and she gave it a pull to make it fall a little lower over the slim black legs that appeared beneath it. ‘It’s not my fault that I have just come from a gymnastic class,’ she protested. ‘Besides, my Sunday frock is only two inches longer! What difference does two inches make, even if we have got an aunt coming? You’re so particular, Wilfred.’
‘Stick to your chemicals, Will, and leave the Babe alone,’ growled Egbert, who was trying to read a novel on the sofa and found the conversation disturbing.