horror at the insane
prolificness--the foolhardy fertility--of British householders. We come
very _improbably_ close together, except Tou Tou, who was an
after-thought. There are no two of us, I am proud to say, exactly
simultaneous, but we have come tumbling on each other's heels into the
world in so hot a hurry that we evidently expect to find it a pleasant
place when we get there. Perhaps we do--perhaps we do not; friends, you
will hear and judge for yourselves.

A few years ago when we were little, people used to say that we were
quite a pretty sight, like little steps one above another. We are big
steps now, and no one any longer hazards the suggestion of our being
pretty. On the other hand, nobody denies that we are each as well
furnished with legs, arms, and other etceteras, as our neighbors, nor
can affirm that we are notably more deficient in wits than those of our
friends who have arrived in twos and threes.

We are in the school-room, the big bare school-room, that has seen us
all--that is still seeing some of us--unwillingly dragged, and painfully
goaded up the steep slopes of book-learning. Outside, the March wind is
roughly hustling the dry, brown trees and pinching the diffident green
shoots, while the round and rayless sun of late afternoon is staring,
from behind the elm-twigs in at the long maps on the wall, in at the
high chairs--tall of back, cruelly tiny of seat, off whose rungs we have
kicked all the paint--in at the green baize table, richly freaked with
splashes. Hardly less red than the sun's, are our burnt faces gathered
about the fire.

This fire has no flame--only a glowing, ruddy heart, on which the bright
brass saucepan sits; and kneeling before it, stirring the mess with a
long iron spoon, is Barbara. Algy, as I have before remarked, is grating
a lemon. Bobby is buttering soup-plates. The Brat--the Brat always takes
his ease if he can--is peeling almonds, fishing delicately for them in a
cup of hot water with his finger and thumb; and I, Nancy, am reading
aloud the receipt at the top of my voice, out of a greasy, dog's-eared
cookery-book, which, since it came into our hands, has been the innocent
father of many a hideous compound. Tou Tou alone, in consideration of
her youth, is allowed to be a spectator. She sits on the edge of the
table, swinging her thin legs, and kicking her feet together.

Certainly we deteriorate in looks as we go downward. In Barbara we made
an excellent start: