, but
spent it all on horrid cats' homes.

"That's just it," said the Terror in a tone of considerable animation.
"Come along; I want you to write a letter."

"I'm not going to write any disgusting letter!" cried Erebus hotly.

"Then you're not going to get any bicycle. Come on. I'll look out the
words in the dictionary, and Wiggins can help because, seeing so much
of his father, he's got into the way of using grammar. It'll be
useful. Come on!"

They came on, Wiggins, as always, deeply impressed by the importance of
being a helper of the Twins, for they were in their fourteenth year,
and only ten brief wet summers had passed over his own tousled head,
Erebus clamoring to have her suddenly aroused curiosity gratified.
Practise had made the Terror's ears impervious at will to his sister's
questions, which were frequent and innumerable. Without a word of
explanation he led the way home; without a word he set her down at the
dining-room table with paper and ink before her, and sat down himself
on the opposite side of it, a dictionary in his hand and Wiggins by his
side.

Then he said coldly: "Now don't make any blots, or you'll have to do it
all over again."

"I never make blots! It's you that makes blots!" cried Erebus,
ruffled. "Mr. Etheridge says I write ever so much better than you do.
Ever so much better."

"That's why you're writing the letter and not me," said the Terror
coldly. "Fire away: 'My dear Aunt Amelia'--I say, Wiggins, what's the
proper words for 'awfully keen'?"

"'Keen' is 'interested'--I don't know how many 'r's' there are in
'interested'--and 'awfully' is an awfully difficult word," said
Wiggins, pondering.

The Terror looked up "interested" in the dictionary with a laborious
painfulness, and announced triumphantly that there was but a single "r"
in it; then he said, "What's the right word for 'awfully,' Wiggins?
Buck up!"

"'Tremendously,'" said Wiggins with the air of a successful Columbus.

"That's it," said the Terror. "'My dear Aunt Amelia: I have often
heard that you are tremendously interested in cats' homes'"--

"I should think you had!" said Erebus.

"Now don't jabber, please; just stick to the writing," said the Terror.
"I've got to make this letter a corker; and how can I think if you
jabber?"

Erebus made a hideous grimace and bent to her task.

"'Little Deeping wants a cats' home awfully'--no: 'tremendously.' I
like that word 'tremendously'; it means somethin