'Very well, dears, so long as you don't make too much noise,' was the sole comment of this most provokingly placid lady. What she ought to have done was, of course, to throw down her work, raise her eyes to the clouds, clasp her hands, and observe, in an agitated tone, 'Heaven protect us! We are lost!' But few mothers are capable of really rising to emergencies of this kind.
Hilary and Cecily had been playing tennis, and, overhearing the alarming news, came up to the steps of the verandah. 'Did you say Red Indians were coming here?'
Uncle Lambert shook his head lugubriously. 'I always warned your father,' he remarked; 'but he would come to live in Berkshire.'
'Why?' inquired Cecily. 'Is Berkshire a bad place for Red Indians, uncle?'
'I should say it was one of the worst places in all Europe!' he said solemnly.
Both Hilary and Cecily had heard and read a good deal about Red Indians lately, and had also, with their brothers, visited the American Exhibition, so that it did not strike either of them as unlikely just then that there should be a few scattered about in England, just as gipsies are.
'But what are you going to do about it?' they asked their brother.
'Lick 'em, of course!' said Guy. 'Now you see that an army is some use, after all.'
'Don't be taken alive, there's good boys,' advised their frivolous uncle, who seemed still unable to realise the extreme gravity of the occasion. 'Sell your lives as dearly as possible.'
'What is the use of telling them that, uncle?' exclaimed Cecily. 'They wouldn't get the money; and do you think any of us would touch it? How can you talk in that horrid way? Jack and Guy, don't go to that camp. Let the Indians have it, if they want to; you can soon build another.'