7, nor where sago
came from, nor what were the calyx and the stamen of a flower (had they
not themselves tested her?)--well, if Anna could make up a book, so
could they--every one of them.

"It will cost us twopence each," said Pauline calculatingly, "but we can
afford it; it's nearly the day for our sixpences again."

"I wanted my last tuppence for some pink wool--can't you find some paper
in the house?" said Muffie on discovering that the disbursement Pauline
declared necessary was for mere paper.

"No," said Pauline firmly; "authors always have plenty of clean paper. I
won't use the half sheets Miss Bibby gives us to scribble on."

"No, no; _do_ let us use proper paper," cried Lynn, who had had far too
many poetic fancies nipped in the bud for want of this precious
transmitting material.

So the purchases were made and the eightpennyworth of paper made a very
respectable show upon the table of the summer-house, to which they had
retreated to ensure privacy to themselves for the arduous undertaking.

Pauline sat at the head of the table, the others ranged almost meekly
around her. Hers was a responsible position and she intended them all to
realize it.

For while it was one thing for all to say lightly, "We will write a book
each," the matter resolved itself into all the actual writing falling to
Pauline, for the sad and simple reason that none of the others _could_
write.

So Pauline leaned back and gave herself airs.

"I shall write my own story first," she said, "and you are none of you
to speak a word to interrupt me, or I won't write yours at all. Max,
stop scratching on the table; Muffie, don't shuffle your feet like that,
you put my vein out." The last was a slightly tangled remark picked up
from Miss Kinross who had been heard to speak of various interruptions
putting her brother out of vein.

Muffie, thwarted in her desire to scratch a horse upon the surface of
the table, fell to filling up a crack in it with sand scooped up from
the floor and mixed, when the writing lady was not looking, to a
pleasing consistency with ink.

Lynn lay face downwards on a bench and bent all her energies to
composing the story that Pauline would shortly write at her dictation.

Max simply strolled to the door; the little girls might be under
Pauline's thumb, but no one expected him really to obey any one except
his father.

"Call me when you're leady," he said to Pauline, "I'll be sitting on the
loof."

And Mu