"How old are you?"
"I shall be fifteen in a few months. Please don't clutch my shoulders so tightly."
"Well, you're very little younger than we are. We're twins and we're fifteen. We won't be sixteen till Christmas, so there isn't a year between us. We can have a fair fight."
"Now, look here, little monster," said Henny-penny. "Don't you think you are going to have your way in this house, which belonged to our mother."
"Please," said Maureen, "it belongs to Uncle Pat. It is the Rectory, you know."
"Take that," said Daisy, and she gave her a resounding smack upon her cheek.
"Now, look here, Miss Interloper," said Henny.—"Daisy, for goodness' sake, don't strike the creature—we mean to be top dogs at Templemore. We mean to get round dad and Dominic and a man you call Colonel, and you'll have no chance whatsoever; and if you think for an instant that we are going to sleep in this room where mumsie slept until the day she was killed, you're finely mistaken, that's all. You want to kill us; that's about the truth."
"Oh, you don't understand," said poor Maureen.
"If I'm forced to sleep in this room, I shall shriek and yell all night long," said Daisy.
"No, you won't, Daisy, for of course you won't sleep in the room. Why, we should have mumsie walking over us all night long—a pretty trick for you to play on us, Miss Humbug; but you'll soon know your own place. We haven't come to this home of desolation for nothing."