id,
'Goodness, father and mother dress for dinner every night at
home.'"

"I think they fancy we are sort of savages," said Eustace. "It
makes me feel inclined to be one, and give them a shock."

Dessert the evening before had proved a very dull affair, and the
time in the drawing-room afterwards, playing halma with the
cousins, was worse. They all four hailed bedtime with thankfulness.
Never before had Eustace and Nesta felt so shut in--so pinned down
and overawed. Never, thought Herbert and Brenda, had they met such
queer, unresponsive children.

At breakfast they found Becky entirely at home with her keeper, who
had a grave kind of way of smiling down upon the small person and
Peter.

"You had better come and see the house now," said Herbert
immediately after breakfast. "I'm going off rabbit-shooting later."

"Not you, Master Peter," said nurse as Peter shot off his chair;
"your hands and face are all sticky, and must be washed before you
can do anything."

The others did not offer to wait for him, so the crestfallen Peter
was left behind, wondering why people wanted so much washing in
England.

Herbert and Brenda took the twins through the house as they might
have conducted a party of sight-seers. Eustace accepted everything
in silence, but Nesta did not. For instance,--

"This is the picture gallery," said Herbert, "and all these people
are our ancestors."

"Yes, I know," said Nesta.

"This is the room Queen Elizabeth is supposed to have slept in
once--"

"Oh yes, mother told us all about that," broke in Nesta; "and the
bishop always sleeps here when he comes to hold confirmations in
the neighbourhood."

The party passed on in silence. This sort of thing was damping to
the showman.

"You see that group of swords over there," began Herbert, trying
again as they reached the hall.

"The middle one was the one Sir Herbert Chase killed the man with
at Worcester and just saved the Prince's life, and you are called
after him," said Nesta, anticipating the tale.

Herbert mentally voted his cousin a bumptious brat of a girl.
Eustace began to wish Nesta would stop showing off so palpably--it
seemed small and silly.

They passed an interesting looking door, and Nesta at once said,--

"Oh, we're missing one. That must be the library, because of the
double doors and the carved owl over them. Do let's go in."

"Can't," said Herbert, glad to show some superior knowledge at
least of the ways of the hous