the bath is the sea, and I am bathing; other times I only paddle
my feet, and sometimes I don't bath at all--that's when I am playing
that I am a gipsy or a tramp--"

"Betty, you nasty, horrid, dirty little thing!" cried Kitty, looking
shocked.

But Betty was quite unabashed. "I've known you not wash either," she
remarked calmly.

Kitty coloured. "But--but that was only once when I forgot; that is
quite different."

"But I don't see that it is," said Betty firmly. You are not cleaner
because you forget to wash than if you don't wash on purpose. Hark!
O Kitty!"

"What shall I do?" cried Kitty despairingly as the boom of the
breakfast-gong sounded through the house. "I haven't begun to dress,
and--Fanny might have told me she was going to be punctual to-day."

"P'r'aps she didn't know it herself," said Betty, tugging away at her
tangle of curls with a comb, and scattering the teeth of it in a shower.
"I expect it is an accident."

"Then I wish she wouldn't have accidents," snapped Kitty. "It is
awfully hard on other people."

Try as hard as one may, one cannot bath and dress in less than five
minutes. Kitty declared she could have done it in that time, if Dan had
not had possession of the bathroom, and Betty had not used her
bath-towel and left it so wet that no one else could possibly use it.

"But I couldn't use my own," protested Betty, when the charge was
brought against her, "for I hadn't one, and of course I had to use
something."

When the discussion had proceeded for some time, Dr. Trenire looked up
from his paper with a half-resigned air. "What is the matter, children?
Haven't we bath-towels enough to go round? Kitty, you should tell me
when things are needed. But never mind; your aunt will see to
everything of that sort now."

"I don't think she will," murmured Betty knowingly, but her father did
not hear her. Kitty felt too dismayed to speak; there was something so
final in her father's tone, it made the coming of the dreaded aunt seem
quite inevitable.

"What are you children going to do to-day?" he went on kindly. "It is a
glorious morning after the storm. You ought to be out as much as
possible, all of you. You should start as soon as you have finished
your work with Miss Pooley."

Miss Pooley was the governess who came daily from ten till one to
instruct them. At least she instructed them as often as she had the
opportunity, but it very frequently happened that when she arr