"Now remember, Carroll, you mustn't get to quarrelling with Doris about anything."
"I won't, mother; I promise."
"We're going to have ice-cream for dessert, and——"
"Oh-e-e!" in a rapturous chorus from all the children.
"I don't want you to make that noise when Celia brings it in to the table; that's why I'm telling you beforehand."
Richard was pirouetting heavily on his little stubbed shoes. "Oh-e-e!" he repeated, "ice-cweam!"
"Now, do you think you can remember?" asked Elizabeth, clasping a string of gold beads about her pretty throat, and turning to meet the three pairs of upturned eyes. "I want Aunty Evelyn to think you've improved a great deal since the last time she was here. You weren't very good that time."
Carroll's clear gaze met his mother's reprovingly. "Do you want Aunty Evelyn to think we've improved, if we haven't?" he asked. "Because we're really getting badder most every day."
"You're badder, you mean," said Doris, with a superior and pitying smile; "I'm as good 's I can be. Mrs. Van Duser said I was a very inter-est-in' 'zample of a child. So there!"