ze on their lips.

Besides, they were deeply humiliated by having been found hiding, and
were ashamed to find themselves trying anxiously in this manner to
conciliate Li Koo. Their dignity on the walk back to the shanty seemed
painfully shrunk. They ought never to have condescended to do the
childish things they had been doing during the last three days. If they
hadn't been found out it would, of course, have remained a private
matter between them and their Maker, and then one doesn't mind so much;
but they had been found out, and by Li Koo, their own servant. It was
intolerable. All the blood of all the Twinklers, Junkers from time
immemorial and properly sensitive to humiliation, surged within them.
They hadn't felt so naughty and so young for years. They were sure Li
Koo didn't believe them about the ditch. They had a dreadful sensation
of being led back to Mrs. Bilton by the ear.

If only they could sack Mrs. Bilton!

This thought, immense and startling, came to Anna-Rose, who far more
than Anna-Felicitas resented being cut off from Mr. Twist, besides being
more naturally impetuous; and as they walked in silence side by side,
with Li Koo a little ahead of them, she turned her head and looked at
Anna-Felicitas. "Let's give her notice," she murmured, under her breath.

Anna-Felicitas was so much taken aback that she stopped in her walk and
stared at Anna-Rose's flushed face.

She too hardly breathed it. The suggestion seemed fantastic in its
monstrousness. How could they give anybody so old, so sure of herself,
so determined as Mrs. Bilton, notice?

"Give her notice?" she repeated.

A chill ran down Anna-Felicitas's spine. Give Mrs. Bilton notice! It was
a great, a breath-taking idea, magnificent in its assertion of
independence, of rights; but it needed, she felt, to be approached with
caution. They had never given anybody notice in their lives, and they
had always thought it must be a most painful thing to do--far, far worse
than tipping. Uncle Arthur usedn't to mind it a bit; did it, indeed,
with gusto. But Aunt Alice hadn't liked it at all, and came out in a
cold perspiration and bewailed her lot to them and wished that people
would behave and not place her in such a painful position.

Mrs. Bilton couldn't be said not to have behaved. Quite the contrary.
She had behaved too persistently; and they had to endure it the whole
twenty-four hours. For Mrs. Bilton had no turn, it appeared, in spite
of what she h