he
mantelpiece exactly facing the big bed.

"I read on the face of that clock," he said, "that the hour is
half-past five. Now, what have you four little children to do, sitting
on my bed at half-past five in the morning?"

When Mr. Delaney said this he shook himself slightly and upset Diana's
balance, and made Orion choke with silent laughter. Iris and Apollo
gazed at him gravely.

"We all made up our minds to do it," said Iris. "We have come to ask
you to make a promise, father."

"A promise, my dear children! But you might have waited until the
usual hour for getting up. What are you going to wring from me at this
inclement moment?"

"I don't exactly know what inclement moment means," said Iris, "but I
do know, and so does Apollo--"

"And so do I know all about it," shouted Diana. "You see, father,"
continued the little girl, who spoke rather more than any of the other
children, "we has to think of the poor innocents, and the birds and
the mice, and the green frogs, and our puppy, and our pug dog, and
our--and our--" Here she fairly stammered in her excitement.

"Has a sudden illness attacked that large family?" said Mr. Delaney.
"Please, children, explain yourselves, for if you are not sleepy, I
am."

"Yes, father," said Iris, "we can explain ourselves quite easily. The
thing is this--we don't want to go away."

"To go away? My dear children, what do you mean?" But as Mr. Delaney
spoke he had a very uncomfortable memory of a letter which he had
posted with his own hands on the previous evening.

"Yes," said Apollo; "we don't want to go away with her."

"And we don't wish for no aunts about the place," said Diana,
clenching her little fist, and letting her big, black eyes flash.

"Now I begin to see daylight," said Mr. Delaney. "So you don't like
poor Aunt Jane?"

"Guess we don't," said Orion. "She comed in last night and she made an
awful fuss, and she didn't like me 'cos I'm Orion, and 'cos I'm a
giant, and 'cos sometimes I has got no eyes. Guess she's afraid of me.
I thought her a silly sort of a body."

"She's an aunt, and that's enough," said Diana. "I don't like no
aunts; they are silly people. I want her to go."

"Apollo and I brought the two younger children," continued Iris,
"because we thought it best for us all to come. It is not Aunt Jane
being here that is so dreadful to me, and so very, very terrible to
Apollo," she continued. "It's what she said, father, that we--we were
to go away