inter, 'tis all right--Mr.
Ernescliffe says he is quite up to the walk, and will like it very much,
and he will undertake to defend you from the quarrymen."

"Is Miss Winter afraid of the quarrymen?" hallooed Harry. "Shall I take
a club?"

"I'll take my gun and shoot them," valiantly exclaimed Tom; and while
threats were passing among the boys, Margaret asked, in a low voice,
"Did you ask him to come with us?"

"Yes, he said he should like it of all things. Papa was there, and said
it was not too far for him--besides, there's the donkey. Papa says it,
so we must go, Miss Winter."

Miss Winter glanced unutterable things at Margaret, and Ethel began to
perceive she had done something wrong. Flora was going to speak, when
Margaret, trying to appear unconscious of a certain deepening colour in
her own cheeks, pressed a hand on her shoulder, and whispering, "I'll
see about it. Don't say any more, please," glided out of the room.

"What's in the wind?" said Harry. "Are many of your reefs out there,
Ethel?"

"Harry can talk nothing but sailors' language," said Flora, "and I am
sure he did not learn that of Mr. Ernescliffe. You never hear slang from
him."

"But aren't we going to Cocksmoor?" asked Mary, a blunt downright girl
of ten.

"We shall know soon," said Ethel. "I suppose I had better wait till
after the reading to mend that horrid frock?"

"I think so, since we are so nearly collected," said Miss Winter; and
Ethel, seating herself on the corner of the window-seat, with one leg
doubled under her, took up a Shakespeare, holding it close to her
eyes, and her brother Norman, who, in age, came between her and Flora,
kneeling on one knee on the window-seat, and supporting himself with one
arm against the shutter, leaned over her, reading it too, disregarding a
tumultuous skirmish going on in that division of the family collectively
termed "the boys," namely, Harry, Mary, and Tom, until Tom was suddenly
pushed down, and tumbled over into Ethel's lap, thereby upsetting
her and Norman together, and there was a general downfall, and a loud
scream, "The sphynx!"

"You've crushed it," cried Harry, dealing out thumps indiscriminately.

"No, here 'tis," said Mary, rushing among them, and bringing out a green
sphynx caterpillar on her finger--"'tis not hurt."

"Pax! Pax!" cried Norman, over all, with the voice of an authority,
as he leaped up lightly and set Tom on his legs again. "Harry! you had
better do that again,"