ists, fought himself free, and
yelled for Esther.

Mr. Hassal had emptied the buggies by now, and came up the steps
himself.

"Aren't you going to give them some breakfast, little mother?" he
said, and the old lady nearly dropped her grandson in her distress.

"Dear, dear!" she said. "Well, well! Just to think of it! But it
makes one forget."

In ten minutes they were all in dry things, sitting in the warm
dining-room and making prodigious breakfasts.

"WASN'T I hungry!" Bunty said. His mouth was full of toast, and he
was slicing the top off his fourth egg and keeping an eye on a dish
that held honey in one compartment and clotted cream in another.

"The dear old plates!" Esther picked hers up after she had emptied it
and looked lovingly at the blue roses depicted upon it. "And to think
last time l ate off one I--"

"Was a little bride with the veil pushed back from your face," the old
lady said, "and everyone watching you cut the cake. Only two have broken
since--oh yes, Hannah, the girl who came after Emily, chipped off the
handle of the sugar-basin and broke a bit out of the slop-bowl."

"Where did Father stand?" Meg asked. She was peopling the room with
wedding guests; the ham and the chops, the toast and eggs and dishes
of fruit, had turned to a great white towered cake with silver
leaves.

"Just up there where Pip is sitting," Mrs. Hassal said, "and he
was helping Esther with the cake, because she was cutting it
with his sword. Such a hole you made in the table-cloth, Esther, my
very best damask one with the convolvulus leaves, but, of course,
I've darned it--dear, dear!"

Baby had upset her coffee all over herself and her plate and Bunty,
who was next door.

She burst into tears of weariness and nervousness at the new people,
and slipped off her chair under the table. Meg picked her up.

"May I put her to bed?" she said; "she is about worn out."

"Me, too," Nellie said, laying down her half-eaten scone and pushing
back her chair. "Oh, I am so tired!"

"So'm I." Bunty finished up everything on his plate in choking
haste and stood up. "And that horrid coffee's running into my
boots."

So just as the sun began to smile and chase away the sky's heavy
tears, they all went to bed again to make up for the broken night,
and it was: six o'clock and tea-time before any of them opened their
eyes again.

CHAPTER XVI

Yarrahappini

Yarrahappini in the sunshine, the kind of sunshine