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them, but if for any reason Daddy didn’t turn up—that indeed was a just cause for complaint! But they were seldom forgotten by their father.

Tonight Ann had found them troublesome. If they weren’t “out of hand,” as they put it, they were remarkably near to being so. They were excited, and declined to settle down. Well, if they couldn’t go out and talk to the grown-ups, they’d have a pillow-fight. No! Ann forbade the pillow-fight; they were to be quiet. Well, they’d play quoits on the veranda. No, they were to stay in bed and go to sleep.

Ann knew she couldn’t leave them while they were in this restless state, and from the open windows of the smoking-room she could hear the music of the gramophone, and the sound of laughter. They were dancing there! Ann’s little silver shoes beat time to the music. She was already in her white evening gown. Oh, why wouldn’t the children go to sleep and release her from duty? She would love to dance. But she realized that in all probability she would be kept here for hours. On other nights when they had been wakeful they had given her their promise not to leave their beds, but tonight she could extract no promise from them.

“Then I must stay here,” she said, and took up a book to read. But they wouldn’t even let her do that. They were very unkind and naughty children, she told them.

They agreed.

“We have to be naughty sometimes, we can’t help it. I have a black dog that comes and sits on my left shoulder. He’s called Ponko. And Jo’s black dog is Bronko.”