"Although you had a poor lesson and didn't try to make up for it by paying strict attention in the class!"
"Why, Mother, I, er—"
Helen stopped knitting.
"You think I'm taking too seriously a poor lesson that wasn't very bad, after all? Possibly I am, but I've been noticing that all of you are more careless lately than I want my girls and boys to be."
Mrs. Morton stroked Roger's hair and looked around at the handsome young faces illuminated by the firelight.
"You mean us, too?" cried the Ethels, sitting up straight upon the sofa.
"You, too."
"We haven't meant to be careless, Mother," said Roger soberly. His mother's good opinion was something he was proud of keeping and she was so fair in her judgments that he felt that he must meet any accusations like the present in the honest spirit in which they were made.
"Do you want to know what I think is the trouble with all of you?"
Every one of them cried out for information, even Dicky, whose "Yeth" rang out above the others.