t it, till she looked like an Indian squaw, and
then she s-s-snipped off her eyelashes till there wasn't a hair left.
She was sent to bed as w-well as me."

"They have grown again since then," said Norah, shutting one eye, and
screwing up her face in a vain effort to prove the truth of her words.
"I had been to see Lettice have her hair cut that day, and I was longing
to try what it felt like. I knew it was naughty, but I couldn't stop,
it was too fascinating. ... Oh, Lettice, _do_ you remember when you
sucked your thumb?"

Lettice threw up her hands with a little shriek of laughter. "Oh, how
funny it was! I used to suck my thumb, Rex, until I was quite a big
girl, six years old, I think, and one day mother spoke to me seriously,
and said I really must give it up. If I didn't I was to be punished; if
I did, I was to get a prize. I said, `Well, may I suck my thumb as long
as ever I like to-day, for the very last time?' Mother said I might, so
I sat on the stairs outside the nursery door and sucked my thumb all day
long--hours, hours, and hours, and after that I was never seen to suck
it again. I had had enough!"

"It must be awfully nice to belong to a large family," said Rex
wistfully. "You can have such fun together. Edna and I were very quiet
at home, but I had splendid times at school, and sometimes I used to
bring some of the fellows down to stay with me in the holidays. One
night I remember--hallo, here's the Mouse! I thought you were having a
nice little sleep on the schoolroom sofa, Mouse. Come here and sit by
me."

Geraldine advanced to the fireplace in her usual deliberate fashion.
She was quite calm and unruffled, and found time to smile at each member
of the party before she spoke.

"So I was asleep, only they's a fire burning on the carpet of the
schoolroom, and it waked me up."

"Wh-at?"

"They's a fire burning in the miggle of the carpet--a blue fire, jest
like a plum pudding!"

There was a simultaneous shriek of dismay, as work, scissors, and
chestnuts were thrown wildly on the floor, and the Bertrand family
rushed upstairs in a stampede of excitement. The schoolroom door stood
open, the rug thrown back from the couch on which the Mouse had been
lying, and in the centre of the well-worn carpet, little blue flames
were dancing up and down, exactly as they do on a Christmas pudding
which has been previously baptised with spirit. Bob cast a guilty look
at his brother, who stuck his