'And on mine too,' pleaded Amerye.
Kitty said nothing. She knew she wouldn't be trusted to have a cat or anything else on her bed.
'We will take him on alternate nights, Amerye,' said Rosamond, and so that was settled. Beatrice and Tom and Auntie May drove over to Shortleas in the dog-cart. Auntie May looked far sorrier to leave me than glad to go to stay with Mr. Fox. She has never liked him really since he didn't bear to be in the same room with her cat.
Then the children solemnly took possession of me, and Rosamond prevented them from hugging me and lifting me. She never allowed anybody to do that but herself. She is a domineering little thing. I lived in the schoolroom all day, and went up to bed with them at eight. Miss Grueber went up too with them to their rooms, and they had bed drill. It was very odd. They undressed by drill, they had brushing-teeth drill, they had health-exercises drill. I wondered if they would have prayers drill, but they did that alone, without Miss Grueber, all kneeling down by the side of their beds, and tucking their nightgowns carefully under their toes for fear I were to play with them and distract them, which I certainly should have done, because they were quite pink.
The brushing-teeth drill was very funny. One, pour water in the glass! Two, lid off box of tooth-powder! Three, dip brush in glass! Four, dip brush in tooth-powder! Five, scrub! Repeat five times! Then, Listerine!
They had separate beds, at least Kitty's was not much more than a crib, she was so little. The moment Fraülein Grueber had gone they all three got into the same—Rosamond's or Amerye's, there was a different hostess each night. Then they babbled for an hour or so, till they fell asleep. They called it an hour, but children always exaggerate, and I don't believe it was more than twenty minutes. They discussed everything, all the things that had been discussed before them, and whispered before them, and said when they were out of the room even—they seemed to have heard and to know everything. Rosamond snubbed Amerye because she had been to stay in London with Auntie May five times, while Amerye had only been three times. They both snubbed Kitty because she had never been to London at all. They found her very convenient, because she was supposed to want to know things, and gave them a chance of talking about London. She knew that, and sometimes teased them by saying that she didn't want to hear anything about the horrid place where she had never been.
Amerye began like this:
'Do you know that when I was in London—?'
'Of course we know. Go on.'
'Well, when I was in London I went to Everyman.'