"Thank you, aunty," said Sylvia. "It isn't so much for the pictures I want to go, but I do so want to see the room where poor Henry the Fourth was killed. I am so fond of Henry the Fourth."
Aunty smiled, and Ralph burst out laughing.
"What a queer idea!" he said. "If you are so fond of him, I should think you would rather not see the room where he was killed."
Sylvia grew scarlet, and Molly flew up in her defence.
"You've no business to laugh at Sylvia, Ralph," she cried. "I understand her quite well. And she knows a great deal more history than you do—and about pictures, too. Of course we want to see the pictures, too. There's that beautiful blue and orange one of Murillo's that papa has a little copy of. It's at the Louvre."
"I didn't say it wasn't," retorted Ralph. "It's Sylvia's love of horrors I was laughing at."
"She doesn't love horrors," replied Molly, more and more indignant.
"You needn't talk," said Ralph coolly. "Who was it that took a box of matches in her pocket to Holyrood Palace, and was going to strike one to look for the blood-stains on the floor? It was the only thing you cared to see, and yet you are such a goose—crying out if a butterfly settles on you. I think girls are——"
"Ralph, my boy," said grandmother, seeing that by this time Molly was almost in tears; "whatever you think of girls, you make me, I am sorry to say, think that boys' love of teasing is utterly incomprehensible—and oh, so unmanly!"
The last touch went home.