'And,' continued Justin, 'Miss Ward knows I didn't, and we had made it all up and nothing more would have been heard about it but for that little sneak, Hec.'
'You meant to have told your father and mother about it when they came home, surely?' said his aunt.
Justin reddened again, and muttered something about getting into scrapes enough without needing to put himself into them; remarks which Mrs. Caryll thought it wiser not to hear.
'Please don't say anything more about it,' said Miss Ward, speaking more decidedly than she had yet done. 'It is not often we have the pleasure of visitors at tea, and my head is really much better now. I am sure nothing of the kind will happen again, and—and—little Miss——'
'Mouth,' said Gervais quite gravely.
'Mouth?' repeated Miss Ward, looking very puzzled.
'No,' Hec corrected, 'Mouse.'
'Miss Mouse,' she went on, 'will think us a party of——'
'Wild cats,' interrupted Archie.
And at this everybody burst out laughing, Miss Ward included, for she was very good-natured—and on the whole perhaps the laughing was the best thing that could have happened. Then Aunt Mattie had to explain that her little niece's name was not really 'Miss Mouse,' but Rosamond—Rosamond Caryll, as her father was Uncle Ted's brother—though the boys all joined, for once, in saying that they were always going to call her Miss Mouse, 'it suited her so well,' in which their governess agreed.