“‘What have you got on, Mummie?’

“‘What?’

“‘O, your yellow. Well, good-night, boys!’

“‘When do we go on our expedition?’

“‘Oh! it’s soup.’

“‘I’ve got a flea-bite.’

“‘Have you? Where?’

“‘Will somebody brush the crumbs out?’

“And so on, indefinitely. How she stands it I can’t imagine, but there is peace at last. And then it’s the turn of the other children; but I’ll say this for them, they make very little noise.”

“What other children?” asked Clare, with a sense of growing excitement, “do you mean——”