e always so unsatisfactory.'

Before many days the children astonished their aunts still more by their
agility and ingenuity in mischief of all sorts. Roland, a fair,
curly-haired little fellow of seven, led his smaller sister Olive into
every kind of audacious escapade. Their spirits were unflagging, though
at times their frail-looking little bodies seemed to droop under their
activity.

Miss Hunter came upon little Olive one afternoon sitting on the stairs
in a breathless, exhausted state, and Roland was remonstrating with her.

'You've only run up twenty-five times, Olive, and you're tired already;
it's a mile race, and you _must_ go on.'

'She must do nothing of the sort, Roland,' said Miss Hunter sternly. 'I
will not let you tear up and down stairs all day in this fashion. What
do you mean by it?'

'We can't be idle, auntie,' said Roland, shaking his curls back, and
speaking with decision. 'Nurse has the toothache, and won't take us out.
Father says people can be idle very easily, and put it down to the
climate, and "idle hands find mischief," he says, and father is never
idle. If we don't run up and down stairs, where can we run? We like the
stairs best, because we never have stairs in India.'

[Illustration]

'Send them into the garden, Marion,' called out Miss Amabel, from the
garden door; 'I am going to the stables, and then I will look after
them.'

Little Olive jumped up.

'Oh, let us go out, auntie, and see the pretty flowers.'

'You must be very good children then. Go quietly upstairs, and ask nurse
to wrap you up well, as it is rather cold out.'

And then Miss Hunter, who found children rather a perplexing problem,
walked back to her book and her fireside, and thought no more about
them.

Roland and Olive danced out of doors a little time after, in delight at
finding themselves unattended.

'Now,' said Roland peremptorily, 'we're going for a walk, Olive, and you
are not to get tired. And we'll go and find those big iron gates first
of all; they're down this road.'

Down the avenue trotted the children; it was fully half a mile long, and
the thick shrubberies on either side rather alarmed the little girl.

'You're _quite_ sure there isn't a tiger in the bushes?' she asked
repeatedly.

And Roland in superior tones replied,--

'I've told you the English people caught all their tigers long ago, and
put them in a garden in London. Father told me so.'

'And what's outside the big gates, R