d Alice said, "Eighty-seven, eighty-eight--oh, do be quiet half a
sec.!--eighty-nine, ninety--now I shall have to count the stitches all
over again!"

Oswald alone was silent and not cross. I tell you this to show that the
sort of worryingness was among us that is catching, like measles.
Kipling calls it the cameelious hump, and, as usual, that great and good
writer is quite correct.

So Oswald said, "Look here, let's have a council. It says in Kipling's
book when you've got the hump go and dig till you gently perspire. Well,
we can't do that, because it's simply pouring, but----"

The others all interrupted him, and said they hadn't got the hump and
they didn't know what he meant. So he shrugged his shoulders patiently
(it is not his fault that the others hate him to shrug his shoulders
patiently) and he said no more.

Then Dora said, "Oh, don't be so disagreeable, Oswald, for goodness'
sake!"

I assure you she did, though he had done simply nothing.

Matters were in this cryptical state when the door opened and Father
came in.

"Hullo, kiddies!" he remarked kindly. "Beastly wet day, isn't it? And
dark too. I can't think why the rain can't always come in term time. It
seems a poor arrangement to have it in 'vac.,' doesn't it?"

I think every one instantly felt better. I know one of us did, and it
was me.

Father lit the gas, and sat down in the armchair and took Alice on his
knee.

"First," he said, "here is a box of chocs." It was an extra big and
beautiful one and Fuller's best. "And besides the chocs., a piece of
good news! You're all asked to a party at Mrs. Leslie's. She's going to
have all sorts of games and things, with prizes for every one, and a
conjurer and a magic lantern."

The shadow of doom seemed to be lifted from each young brow, and we felt
how much fonder we were of each other than any one would have thought.
At least Oswald felt this, and Dicky told me afterwards he felt Dora
wasn't such a bad sort after all.

"It's on Tuesday week," said Father. "I see the prospect pleases. Number
three is that your cousin Archibald has come here to stay a week or two.
His little sister has taken it into her head to have whooping-cough. And
he's downstairs now, talking to your uncle."

We asked what the young stranger was like, but Father did not know,
because he and cousin Archibald's father had not seen much of each other
for some years. Father said this, but we knew it was because Archibald's
fa