“Come and muck about in Baker’s boat.”

“If Adela——”

“Oh, leave Adela! We don’t want her. She’d stash it all up.”

“But she’s a visitor!”

“Pretty rotten visitor! What did you bring her here for? She’s rotten.”

“She’s not. She’s all right. You’re being horrid rude to her. Every chance you get. I like her.”

“Silly tick, she is!”

“She’s taller than you are, anyhow.”

“Nyar Nyar Nyar Nyar,” said Peter in a singularly ineffective mockery of Adela’s manner. Adela appeared, descending the staircase. Peter turned away.

“Peter wants to go in the boat on the mill-pond,” said Joan, as if with calculated wickedness.