ed out till the gong
went for our dinner. We felt it was going to be awful--and it was. The
newcomers would never have done for knight-errants, or to carry the
Cardinal's sealed message through the heart of France on a horse; they
would never have thought of anything to say to throw the enemy off the
scent when they got into a tight place.

They said 'Yes, please', and 'No, thank you'; and they ate very neatly,
and always wiped their mouths before they drank, as well as after, and
never spoke with them full.

And after dinner it got worse and worse.

We got out all our books and they said 'Thank you', and didn't look at
them properly. And we got out all our toys, and they said 'Thank you,
it's very nice' to everything. And it got less and less pleasant, and
towards teatime it came to nobody saying anything except Noel and H.
O.--and they talked to each other about cricket.

After tea Father came in, and he played 'Letters' with them and the
girls, and it was a little better; but while late dinner was going on--I
shall never forget it. Oswald felt like the hero of a book--'almost
at the end of his resources'. I don't think I was ever glad of bedtime
before, but that time I was.

When they had gone to bed (Daisy had to have all her strings and buttons
undone for her, Dora told me, though she is nearly ten, and Denny said
he couldn't sleep without the gas being left a little bit on) we held
a council in the girls' room. We all sat on the bed--it is a mahogany
fourposter with green curtains very good for tents, only the housekeeper
doesn't allow it, and Oswald said--

'This is jolly nice, isn't it?'

'They'll be better to-morrow,' Alice said, 'they're only shy.'

Dicky said shy was all very well, but you needn't behave like a perfect
idiot.

'They're frightened. You see we're all strange to them,' Dora said.

'We're not wild beasts or Indians; we shan't eat them. What have they
got to be frightened of?' Dicky said this.

Noel told us he thought they were an enchanted prince and princess who'd
been turned into white rabbits, and their bodies had got changed back
but not their insides.

But Oswald told him to dry up.

'It's no use making things up about them,' he said. 'The thing is:
what are we going to DO? We can't have our holidays spoiled by these
snivelling kids.'

'No,' Alice said, 'but they can't possibly go on snivelling for ever.
Perhaps they've got into the habit of it with that Murdstone aunt. She