pressed her favourably. They
are coming. I heard from them this morning.

"I shall hate those Miss Alans!" Mrs. Honeychurch cried. "Just because
they're old and silly one's expected to say 'How sweet!' I hate
their 'if'-ing and 'but'-ing and 'and'-ing. And poor Lucy--serve her
right--worn to a shadow."

Mr. Beebe watched the shadow springing and shouting over the
tennis-court. Cecil was absent--one did not play bumble-puppy when he
was there.

"Well, if they are coming--No, Minnie, not Saturn." Saturn was a
tennis-ball whose skin was partially unsewn. When in motion his orb was
encircled by a ring. "If they are coming, Sir Harry will let them move
in before the twenty-ninth, and he will cross out the clause about
whitewashing the ceilings, because it made them nervous, and put in the
fair wear and tear one.--That doesn't count. I told you not Saturn."

"Saturn's all right for bumble-puppy," cried Freddy, joining them.
"Minnie, don't you listen to her."

"Saturn doesn't bounce."

"Saturn bounces enough."

"No, he doesn't."

"Well; he bounces better than the Beautiful White Devil."

"Hush, dear," said Mrs. Honeychurch.

"But look at Lucy--complaining of Saturn, and all the time's got the
Beautiful White Devil in her hand, ready to plug it in. That's right,
Minnie, go for her--get her over the shins with the racquet--get her
over the shins!"

Lucy fell, the Beautiful White Devil rolled from her hand.

Mr. Beebe picked it up, and said: "The name of this ball is Vittoria
Corombona, please." But his correction passed unheeded.

Freddy possessed to a high degree the power of lashing little girls
to fury, and in half a minute he had transformed Minnie from a
well-mannered child into a howling wilderness. Up in the house Cecil
heard them, and, though he was full of entertaining news, he did not
come down to impart it, in case he got hurt. He was not a coward and
bore necessary pain as well as any man. But he hated the physical
violence of the young. How right it was! Sure enough it ended in a cry.

"I wish the Miss Alans could see this," observed Mr. Beebe, just as
Lucy, who was nursing the injured Minnie, was in turn lifted off her
feet by her brother.

"Who are the Miss Alans?" Freddy panted.

"They have taken Cissie Villa."

"That wasn't the name--"

Here his foot slipped, and they all fell most agreeably on to the grass.
An interval elapses.

"Wasn't what name?" asked Lucy, with her brother's head i