Peter tells me. I doubt if my master is
pleased to see her. She will most likely go away in a day or two, so
don't you fret, Miss Iris, love. Now, come along, Master Orion, and
let me undress you. It is very late, and you ought to be in your
little bed."

"I'm Orion," said the little boy, "and I'm stone blind." He began to
strut up and down the nursery with his eyes tightly shut.

"Apollo, please, may I get on your shoulder for a bit, and will you
lead me to that place where the first sunbeam rises in the east over
the sea?"

"Come," said Fortune, in what Diana would call a "temperish" tone, "we
can have no more of that ridiculous story-telling to-night. Miss Iris,
you'll ask them to be good, won't you?"

"Yes. Children, do be good," said Iris, in her earnest voice.

Diana trotted up to her sister and took her hand.

"I has something most 'portant to tell you," she said, in a low
whisper. "It's an awfu' sorrow, but you ought to know."

"What is it, Di?"

"Rub-a-Dub has got deaded."

"Rub-a-Dub?"

"Yes; it is quite true. I found him stark dead and stiff. I has put
him in the dead-house."

Iris said nothing.

"And he is to have a public funeral, isn't he?" said Diana, "and a
beautiful insipcron. Do say he is, and let us have the funeral
to-morrow."

"I am awfully sorry," said Iris, then; "I did love Rub-a-Dub. Yes, Di;
I'll think it over. We can meet after breakfast in the dead-house and
settle what to do."

"There are to be a lot of funerals to-morrow--I'm so glad," said
Diana, with a chuckle.

She followed Orion into the night-nursery. He was still walking with
his eyes tightly shut and went bang up against his bath, a good
portion of which he spilt on the floor. This put both Fortune and the
under-nurse, Susan, into a temper, and they shook him and made him
cry, whereupon Diana cried in concert, and poor Iris felt a great
weight resting on her heart.

"It is awfully difficult to be a mother to them all," she thought.
"The usual kind of things don't seem to please them. Apollo, what is
the matter? What are you thinking of?"

"I'm only wishing that I might be the real Apollo," said the boy, "and
that I might get quite far away from here. Things are different here
now that mother has gone, Iris. I don't like Aunt Jane Dolman a bit."

"Oh, well, she is our aunt, so I suppose it is wrong not to like her,"
answered Iris.

"I can't help it," replied Apollo. "I have a feeling that she means
to make