she'll
say he's much too young to be trusted with a gun, though he is such an
overgrown, hulking chap; and why isn't he in the fifth instead of the
upper fourth, at _his_ age?'

'What do you know about it, you youngest-but-two?' shouted Peter,
wrathfully.

Kit peered at him through his spectacles, and went on as impudently as
ever. He was never afraid to speak his mind, for none of the others would
have dreamed of laying a finger, except in fun, on the one brother who was
not strong enough to defend himself; and Kit knew this, as well as he
knew his superiority over them in the matter of brains. The only wonder
was that the knowledge had not made him a prig. Perhaps it would have
been difficult, though, in the hurly-burly of the Berkeley family, for any
one to have been a prig.

'As for Wilfred,' he resumed, 'she'll upset all his ambitions before
he can turn round. Do you suppose she'll encourage his messing about
with things in saucepans, just because he wants to be a doctor? Not she!
She'll talk about some rotten business in the City instead. Aunts always
know millions of places in the City where they can shove their unwilling
nephews.'

'Oh, I say, dry up!' objected Wilfred, who was already sufficiently
depressed by the discovery that the brew in the saucepan was not a success.

'Then she'll pack Robin off to a preparatory at Brighton--never knew an
aunt yet who didn't want to send you to a preparatory at Brighton!--and
she'll do the same to me, only she'll choose a beastly inferior place,
where I shall be looked after by some _woman_,' concluded Christopher, in
a tone of scorn. Then he caught sight of Barbara, who was still standing
thoughtfully in the middle of the room; and he shook his head at her
pityingly. 'After that, having cleared the house of boys, she'll turn
her attention to the Babe,' he said, and paused rather abruptly.

Barbara woke up from her reflections with a start. 'Yes, Kit?' she said
questioningly. 'What will Auntie Anna do to me?'

Kit's expression of pity became exaggerated. 'To begin with,' he said,
with a deep sigh, 'she'll let down your frocks, and tie back your hair,
and never let you go anywhere alone, not even to the pillar-box at the
corner!'

The other boys began to laugh afresh.

'Think of the Babe with her hair bunched up on the top, and fastened with
a bit of ribbon! She'll look exactly like a French poodle, won't she?'
scoffed Peter.

'She'll have to hold up her skirt