that's counted right."

But Fixie seemed rather grumbly and cross.

"_I_ like mouses," he persisted; and so, to change his ideas, Bee
went on talking about the knot hole. "We might get a stick to-morrow,"
she said, "and poke it down to see how far it would go."

"Not a 'tick," said Fixie, "it would hurt the little mouses. I didn't
say a 'tick--I said a piece of 'ting. I fink you'se welly unkind, Bee,
to hurt the poor little mouses," and he grew so very doleful about it
that Bee was quite glad when Martha called them to tea.

"I don't know what's the matter with Fixie," she said to Martha, in a
low voice.

"He's not very well," said Martha, looking at her little boy
anxiously. But tea seemed to do Fixie good, and he grew brighter
again, so that Martha began to think there could not be much wrong.

Nursery tea was long over before Rosy came home, and so she stayed
down in the drawing-room to have some with her mother and aunt. And
even after that she did not come back to the other children, but went
into her aunt's room to look over some things they had bought in the
little town they had passed, coming home. She just put her head in at
the nursery door, seeming in very high spirits, and called out to Bee
that she would tell her how nice it had been at Summerlands.

But the evening went on. Fixie grew tired and cross, and Martha put
him to bed; and it was not till nearly the big people's dinner-time