aren't ashamed for anyone to
come here." She did not see, nor would she have cared if she had seen,
the quivering of Debby's lips, the hurt feeling in her eyes.

Faith was torn two ways; full of pity for her little sister she yet felt
she must uphold the authority of the eldest one. "Debby dear," she said,
"your old hat, at any rate, oughtn't to be lying here, and just think how
horrid it will be if slugs and snails get into it. It is time your dolls
came in and had a bath, isn't it? They have been out all night.
Tom, pick up that paper, will you, dear? You know daddy dislikes to see
paper lying about."

"I forgot," said Tom, "we were playing shops when daddy called out and
asked if we would like to go to the station."

"But that was yesterday," said Audrey coldly, "I saw it lying there when I
came, it looked dreadful, it caught my eye at once. There has been plenty
of time to pick it up since, and you should have done it."

The look of sullen rebellion came again to Tom's face. "Daddy didn't tell
me to, or Faith. I suppose Audrey thinks she can boss us as much as she
likes," he whispered angrily to Debby, "'cause she is the eldest.
I wish she had stayed at granny's for ever and ever."

Faith walked on at her sister's side, looking grave and troubled.
From time to time she glanced with anxious eyes at Audrey's face.
She could see that she was annoyed, and irritated.

"I--I expect we seem rather untidy to you, after granny's," she remarked
at last. She spoke apologetically, yet she was longing for a word of
understanding sympathy. "With mother's illness, and--and little children,
and no nurse to look after them, it has been so difficult to keep it all
nice."

But Audrey only gave a snort of contempt. She had no sympathy to offer.
"Nice!" she said sarcastically; "from the look of the place I shouldn't
have thought anyone had tried. It is more like a pigsty than anything
else. And the children haven't any manners at all," she added, quite
losing sight of her own, and longing only to hurt someone.

CHAPTER V.

Audrey had been at home two weeks, but, she wrote to her granny,
"it seems like two months, and such long ones. Mother seems to be going
on very well, but nothing else does. Everything else seems all wrong.
The house is so shabby and untidy, and no one seems to try to keep it
neat. I am _always_ telling them about it, and then they turn round and
say I am nagging. Oh, granny, I shall