carrying an
armful of roots.

Pauline threw up the window with a crash and called out:

"Father, Father, what a darling you look, and your hair will be swept
right away, if you aren't careful."

The Rector waved his trowel remotely, and Pauline blew him kisses until
she was made aware of protests in the room behind her.

"Really," exclaimed Monica. "You are so noisy. You're almost vulgar."

"Oh no, Monica," cried Pauline, dancing round the room. "Not vulgar. Not
a horrid little vulgar person!"

"And what a noise you do make," Margaret joined in. "Please, Pauline,
shut the window."

At this moment Mrs. Grey opened the door and loosed a whirlwind of
papers upon the nursery.

"Who's vulgar? Who's vulgar?" asked Mrs. Grey, laughing absurdly. "Why,
what a tremendous draught!"

"Mother, shut the door--the door," expostulated Margaret and Monica,
simultaneously. "And do tell Pauline to control herself sometimes."

"Pauline, control yourself," said Mrs. Grey.

When the papers were settling down, Janet, the maid, came in to say
there was a gentleman in the drawing-room, and in the confusion of the
new whirlwind her entrance raised Janet was gone before any one knew who
the gentleman was.

"Ugh!" Margaret grumbled. "I never can be allowed to read in peace."

"I was practising the Mendelssohn trio, Mother," said Monica,
reproachfully.

"Let us all practise. Let us all practise," Mrs. Grey proposed, beaming
enthusiastically upon her daughters. "That would be charming."

"Father is so sweet," said Pauline. "He's simply covered with mud."

"Has he got his kneeler?" asked Mrs. Grey.

Pauline rushed to the window again.

"Mother says 'have you got your kneeler?'"

The Rector paused vaguely, and Birdwood tried to indicate by kicking
himself that he had the kneeler.

"Ah, thoughtful Birdwood," said Mrs. Grey in a satisfied voice.

"And now do you think we might have the window shut?" asked Margaret,
resignedly.

Monica was quite deliberately thumping at the piano part she was
practising. Mrs. Grey sat down and began to tell a long story in which
three poor people of Wychford got curiously blended somehow into one, so
that Pauline, who was the only daughter that ever listened, became very
sympathetic over a fourth poor person who had nothing to do with the
tale.

"And surely Janet came in to say something about the drawing-room," said
Mrs. Grey, as she finished.

"She said a gentleman," Pauline declared.