ack hair and shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

Then the girls upstairs heard the continual:

"Now then, Billy, what are you up to?" in the father's
strong, vibrating voice: or the mother's dignified:

"I have said, Cassie, I will not have it."

It was amazing how the father's voice could ring out like a
gong, without his being in the least moved, and how the mother
could speak like a queen holding an audience, though her blouse
was sticking out all round and her hair was not fastened up and
the children were yelling a pandemonium.

Gradually breakfast was produced, and the elder girls came
down into the babel, whilst half-naked children flitted round
like the wrong ends of cherubs, as Gudrun said, watching the
bare little legs and the chubby tails appearing and
disappearing.

Gradually the young ones were captured, and nightdresses
finally removed, ready for the clean Sunday shirt. But before
the Sunday shirt was slipped over the fleecy head, away darted
the naked body, to wallow in the sheepskin which formed the
parlour rug, whilst the mother walked after, protesting sharply,
holding the shirt like a noose, and the father's bronze voice
rang out, and the naked child wallowing on its back in the deep
sheepskin announced gleefully:

"I'm bading in the sea, mother."

"Why should I walk after you with your shirt?" said the
mother. "Get up now."

"I'm bading in the sea, mother," repeated the wallowing,
naked figure.

"We say bathing, not bading," said the mother, with her
strange, indifferent dignity. "I am waiting here with your
shirt."

At length shirts were on, and stockings were paired, and
little trousers buttoned and little petticoats tied behind. The
besetting cowardice of the family was its shirking of the garter
question.

"Where are your garters, Cassie?"

"I don't know."

"Well, look for them."

But not one of the elder Brangwens would really face the
situation. After Cassie had grovelled under all the furniture
and blacked up all her Sunday cleanliness, to the infinite grief
of everybody, the garter was forgotten in the new washing of the
young face and hands.

Later, Ursula would be indignant to see Miss Cassie marching
into church from Sunday school with her stocking sluthered down
to her ankle, and a grubby knee showing.

"It's disgraceful!" cried Ursula at dinner. "People will
think we're pigs, and the children are never washed."

"Never mind what people think," said the mother supe