“Did they, indeed?” her husband said. “Good old twinses! I quite forgot that the little chaps were still asleep.”
“Oh, Rex isn’t. But he was late: the twins wouldn’t call him. He was very disgusted to find that they had done the outside work, and at once went and chopped another barrow-load of wood! I think he would have liked to milk again, but Jean pointed out that the cows wouldn’t have been of the same opinion!”
A quaint figure came round the corner of the verandah: Billy, in his pyjamas, with his ruddy curls ruffled all over his head, and with his face startlingly dirty. He came towards his father, rubbing blackened fists into his sleepy eyes.
“Is the fire out?” he asked.
“All that matters is out,” John Weston said.
“Did we get burned out, Father?”
“No, we didn’t. And I’m proud of you, old son.” John Weston sat down, drawing the boy into his arms; and Billy snuggled down on his knee, cuddling his sleepy head into his father’s neck. Over the rumpled curls the father and mother smiled at each other.
Round the corner came the twins, with Rex between them.
“Father! Is everything all right?”
“Quite all right,” Mr. Weston said. He held out his hand to Rex.