“It’s a very big room, you see, and we love being all together.”
Paul glanced about him rather critically.
“You haven’t any pictures on the walls,” he remarked. “My room at home is full of pictures. They’re all copies of the old masters, and Mother makes me learn a lot of stuff about the fellows who painted them. I hate it.”
“I should think it would be very interesting,” said Dulcie. “I love to learn about people.”
“You wouldn’t if you lived with Mother. She’s always making me learn things, and then she tells people, and I have to show off. I say, what’s an ‘incumbrance’?”
“I don’t know,” said Dulcie, looking puzzled. “What makes you ask?”
“Because you’re all one, Mother said so. She was talking to Father last night, and she said you were all a terrible incumbrance to Grandma.”
Dulcie reddened.
“I don’t know what it means,” she said, “but I’m sure it isn’t anything nice, and I don’t think you are very polite to repeat it. Don’t you know it isn’t honorable to repeat things you hear people say? Papa never allows us to do it, and he is a very honorable man.”
Paul looked rather embarrassed.