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She hesitated.

“Go along,” said Holmes. “I’ll see to these little devils.”

“Daddy, you’re being very rude to your beautiful children, isn’t he, Jo?”

“Damned rude,” said Jo.

“Now! Now! That’s not allowed,” said Holmes.

But unfortunately both Jo and Biddy had seen that their elders were laughing, and so they laughed too.

“You said devils,” Joe defended herself. “Damned’s out of the Bible too. It means ‘condemned’—that’s all. Miss Hildred told us one day when you said it.”

“Waring, take Miss Merrill off before she gives me notice. No self-respecting governess should be called upon to listen to such horrible and depraved little girls!”

(They hated being called “little girls” by him—youngsters, kids, children, devils—anything was better than “little girls”!)

“So namby-pamby!” said Biddy.

Ann, nothing loath, went off with Waring to the smoking-room. Waring danced well, and even knew the Charleston. Ann was surprised. Well, she needn’t be, he told her. He’d been in London less than a year ago. But when the dance ended, and he wanted her to walk down the garden with him as far as the tennis court, Ann said: No, she’d spoil her shoes; and so they sat in two deck-chairs on the veranda.

But it was not her feet that Ann was anxious about. It was her head. She didn’t want to lose it. She had realized during the dance that it might not be quite so easy to play with fire as she had thought during the afternoon. Discretion was the better part of valor. She was here as governess, and as governess—a quite