"She is ours, my dear," he said tenderly; "and I think her simplicity natural and charming. But perhaps she has said something—she does sometimes—to Mrs. Lytchett."
"She does often. Mrs. Lytchett was here yesterday. I know she is good, but she is irritating, John. She condoled with me about your litter, and wondered if I couldn't arrange a room for you up in the attics. And she said she was sure all the boys were behaving badly in church on Sunday afternoon—and why didn't Marjorie sit between them, instead of at the end of the pew, where the corner was a temptation to her to lounge? And then she made a set at the stocking basket, and criticised the darning, and pitied us dreadfully for so many boys, all with knees, as well as red heads. And then Marjorie broke out. She thought the heads were beautiful, also the knees, and that the boys behaved in church like saints; and that you'd be miserable in the attics without me—though she could understand that with a nagging woman always about a man must have somewhere to hide himself."
"I hope Marjorie won't turn into a virago," her father said anxiously, after a pause. "That was rude, even if it were true. She is cramped here—it is a cramping place; and we are to blame—we put too much upon her."
He sighed, and rose to take his wife's cup, and then stretched himself before the fireless grate. "She has a dangerous gift of imagination. Will she ever be satisfied with Warde? I have told him he may speak now. But she is a child still, she has no idea——" he paused.
An inroad of boys, come to be inspected by their mother before starting on their errand, brought their father back to the table and the letter they were to take. Sandy, balancing on the arm of his chair, superintended its composition.
"Father's put 'Dear Sir,' 'stead of 'Horrid Fellow,'" he announced aloud to the others. They were standing round the table; the smallest of them, aged three, could just rest his chin upon it, and was listening in solemn admiration of Sandy's sentiments.
"Are you going to take all this horde with you, Marjorie?" her mother asked, her observant eyes glancing from collar to collar and from boot to boot.
"Yes, mother; I thought it would economise matters. They're all mischievous, and will need apologising for some time; it is such a convenient way to school."
"'My little sons will, I hope, make their 'pologies in person for their rudeness. I am extwemely sorry——'" sang out Sandy, raising himself on his elbows, dug into the table, the better to see what his father was writing.
"Don't put 'little,' father," he pleaded; "he'll think it's Ross or Orme, 'stead of us."