“What going to do?” asked Barby, wriggling and pushing.
“Go right straight out!” demanded King, pushing the door with all his might.
“O King, King!” cried Grace, pulling at his sailor collar.
“This is my mamma’s room,” said Elyot stoutly; “and I am not going out—so there!”
“My mummy’s room,” declared Barby, shaking her curls at him; “an’ I’m coming in, I am.”
“You sha’n’t. We’re going to draw the most beautiful pictures of bears—and eating men up, and everything,” howled King quite beside himself, and beginning to use his teeth and fingernails.
“Oh, dear me!” cried Grace Tupper, unable to do a thing to stop them. And she sat right down in the middle of the floor, and began to cry.
Polly’s company just departing, Polly ran lightly over the stairs. “Why—children!” she exclaimed, pausing at the landing.
“He’s going to draw be-yewtiful bears, mummy,” cried Barby, dreadfully excited; and being the nearest to the hall, she ran out, and threw herself into her mother’s arms.
“O boys—boys!” cried Polly sorrowfully, coming in, Barby hanging to her gown.