"A promise, my dear children! But you might have waited until the usual hour for getting up. What are you going to wring from me at this inclement moment?"
"I don't exactly know what inclement moment means," said Iris, "but I do know, and so does Apollo—"
"And so do I know all about it," shouted Diana. "You see, father," continued the little girl, who spoke rather more than any of the other children, "we has to think of the poor innocents, and the birds and the mice, and the green frogs, and our puppy, and our pug dog, and our—and our—" Here she fairly stammered in her excitement.
"Has a sudden illness attacked that large family?" said Mr. Delaney. "Please, children, explain yourselves, for if you are not sleepy, I am."
"Yes, father," said Iris, "we can explain ourselves quite easily. The thing is this—we don't want to go away."
"To go away? My dear children, what do you mean?" But as Mr. Delaney spoke he had a very uncomfortable memory of a letter which he had posted with his own hands on the previous evening.
"Yes," said Apollo; "we don't want to go away with her."
"And we don't wish for no aunts about the place," said Diana, clenching her little fist, and letting her big, black eyes flash.
"Now I begin to see daylight," said Mr. Delaney. "So you don't like poor Aunt Jane?"
"Guess we don't," said Orion. "She comed in last night and she made an awful fuss, and she didn't like me 'cos I'm Orion, and 'cos I'm a giant, and 'cos sometimes I has got no eyes. Guess she's afraid of me. I thought her a silly sort of a body."