idea of Aunt Emma's proper place was anywhere where they were not.
So they saw very little of her. They preferred the company of the
servants, who were more amusing. Cook, if in a good temper, could
sing comic songs, and the housemaid, if she happened not to be
offended with you, could imitate a hen that has laid an egg, a
bottle of champagne being opened, and could mew like two cats
fighting. The servants never told the children what the bad news
was that the gentlemen had brought to Father. But they kept hinting
that they could tell a great deal if they chose--and this was not
comfortable.

One day when Peter had made a booby trap over the bath-room door,
and it had acted beautifully as Ruth passed through, that red-haired
parlour-maid caught him and boxed his ears.

"You'll come to a bad end," she said furiously, "you nasty little
limb, you! If you don't mend your ways, you'll go where your
precious Father's gone, so I tell you straight!"

Roberta repeated this to her Mother, and next day Ruth was sent
away.

Then came the time when Mother came home and went to bed and stayed
there two days and the Doctor came, and the children crept
wretchedly about the house and wondered if the world was coming to
an end.

Mother came down one morning to breakfast, very pale and with lines
on her face that used not to be there. And she smiled, as well as
she could, and said:--