r of Mother's room and knocked.

"Well, what is it?" asked Mother from inside.

"Mother," said Bobbie, "mayn't I light a fire? I do know how."

And Mother said: "No, my ducky-love. We mustn't have fires in June--coal
is so dear. If you're cold, go and have a good romp in the attic.
That'll warm you."

"But, Mother, it only takes such a very little coal to make a fire."

"It's more than we can afford, chickeny-love," said Mother, cheerfully.
"Now run away, there's darlings--I'm madly busy!"

"Mother's always busy now," said Phyllis, in a whisper to Peter. Peter
did not answer. He shrugged his shoulders. He was thinking.

Thought, however, could not long keep itself from the suitable
furnishing of a bandit's lair in the attic. Peter was the bandit, of
course. Bobbie was his lieutenant, his band of trusty robbers, and, in
due course, the parent of Phyllis, who was the captured maiden for whom
a magnificent ransom--in horse-beans--was unhesitatingly paid.

They all went down to tea flushed and joyous as any mountain brigands.

But when Phyllis was going to add jam to her bread and butter, Mother
said:--

"Jam OR butter, dear--not jam AND butter. We can't afford that sort of
reckless luxury nowadays."

Phyllis finished the slice of bread and butter in silence, and followed
it up by bread and jam. Peter mingled thought and weak tea.

After tea they went back to the attic and he said to his sisters:--

"I have an idea."

"What's that?" they asked politely.

"I shan't tell you," was Peter's unexpected rejoinder.

"Oh, very well," said Bobbie; and Phil said, "Don't, then."

"Girls," said Peter, "are always so hasty tempered."

"I should like to know what boys are?" said Bobbie, with fine disdain.
"I don't want to know about your silly ideas."

"You'll know some day," said Peter, keeping his own temper by what
looked exactly like a miracle; "if you hadn't been so keen on a row, I
might have told you about it being only noble-heartedness that made me
not tell you my idea. But now I shan't tell you anything at all about
it--so there!"

And it was, indeed, some time before he could be induced to say
anything, and when he did it wasn't much. He said:--

"The only reason why I won't tell you my idea that I'm going to do is
because it MAY be wrong, and I don't want to drag you into it."

"Don't you do it if it's wrong, Peter," said Bobbie; "let me do it." But
Phyllis said:--

"_I_ should like to do wrong if