"Jenny-Wee, Mamma says if I'm not good Aunt Bella will be ill. Do you think it's really true?"
Jenny tugged. "I'd thank you for some of your Aunt Bella's illness," she said.
"I mean," Mary said, "like Papa was in the night. Every time I get 'cited and jump about I think she'll open her mouth and begin."
"Well, if she was to you'd oughter be sorry for her."
"I am sorry for her. But I'm frightened too."
"That's not being good," said Jenny. But she left off tugging.
Somehow you knew she was pleased to think you were not really good at Aunt Bella's, where Mrs. Fisher dressed and undressed you and you were allowed to talk to Pidgeon.
Roddy and Dank said you ought to hate Uncle Edward and Pidgeon and Mrs. Fisher, and not to like Aunt Bella very much, even if she was Mamma's sister. Mamma didn't really like Uncle Edward; she only pretended because of Aunt Bella.
Uncle Edward had an ugly nose and a yellow face widened by his black whiskers; his mouth stretched from one whisker to the other, and his black hair curled in large tufts above his ears. But he had no beard; you could see the whole of his mouth at once; and when Aunt Bella came into the room his little blue eyes looked up off the side of his nose and he smiled at her between his tufts of hair. It was dreadful to think that Mark and Dank and Roddy didn't like him. It might hurt him so much that he would never be happy again.
About Pidgeon she was not quite sure. Pidgeon was very ugly. He had long stiff legs, and a long stiff face finished off with a fringe of red whiskers that went on under his chin. Still, it was not nice to think of Pidgeon being unhappy either. But Mrs. Fisher was large and rather like Aunt Bella, only softer and more bulging. Her round face had a high red polish on it always, and when she saw you coming her eyes twinkled, and her red forehead and her big cheeks and her mouth smiled all together a fat, simmering smile. When you got to the black and white marble tiles you saw her waiting for you at the foot of the stairs.