"So it is. Ask 'Mamma' if you may come to tea, and come over directly you have had dinner."
Thomas looked dissatisfied.
"Couldn't I say to Mamma you would like us to come to dinner? Then we could come just after breakfast. You see, there's that house we're building——"
"I'm going to buy nails with my Saturday penny," said Billy.
"By all means come to dinner," said Elizabeth, "if Mamma doesn't mind. Good-night, sonnies—now run."
She opened the front-door for them, and watched them scud across the road to their own gate—then she went back to the drawing-room.
"I must be going too," said Miss Christie, sitting back more comfortably in her chair.
"It's Band of Hope night," said Elizabeth.
Buff had been marching up and down the room, with Launcelot in his arms, telling himself a story, but he now came and leant against his sister. She stroked his hair as she asked, "What's the matter, Buffy boy?"
"I wish," said Buff, "that I lived in a house where people didn't go to meetings."