nd the genius of the family could not resist the temptation to make a
speech.

'Boys,' he began, nodding his head with mock importance, 'it is my opinion
that Auntie Anna is a jolly wise old lady!'

'What's that to do with father going away?' asked Barbara, rubbing her
eyes furiously. She had had her cry on the back staircase, and she felt
safe for the moment against a further display of weakness.

'It's got a lot to do with it,' rejoined Kit. 'Didn't she take us all
to the pantomime, last night--father, too? I suppose you think that was
just to amuse herself, don't you? Well, it wasn't. It was because she
was afraid of our sitting together at home, and saying it was father's
last evening, and--_blubbing_.'

This he said severely, looking at the weaker members, Babs and Robin, as
he spoke. They bore the test heroically, and the orator went on.

'And why,' he inquired, 'did she give us only a week to pack up, and buy
clothes and things, when there's ten days more before you other chaps go
back? Of course there's the Babe's school, but that could have waited.
Girls' schools never matter.'

'Well, _why_, most precocious of kids?' asked Egbert, with lazy tolerance.
Certainly, no one but Christopher would have been allowed to say so much
uninterrupted. But then, even Egbert had a kind of secret admiration for
his clever young brother, though he did not pretend to understand him.

'Well,' continued Christopher, 'if we'd had more time to think about it,
we might not have been so keen on going to live in another person's house.
And, naturally, Auntie Anna didn't want any ructions over it.'

'Oh, stop it, Kit! What a lot of rot you are making up!' objected Peter,
impatiently. Of the three elder boys, he was nearest in age to Kit, and
was consequently less inclined to tolerate him.

'Everything points to it, if you're not too thick-headed to see,' retorted
Kit, crushingly. 'Look at the way we're being rushed out of the house,
directly father has turned his back. Isn't that to give us something to
think about, so that we shouldn't mope about the shop, and _fancy_
ourselves? Of course,' he added blandly, fixing his spectacles on his
nose and staring at Peter, '_some_ people don't need anything to set them
grinning again.'

'Christopher, my son, you are a clever child, but your impudence simply
isn't to be borne,' said Peter; and he stooped down and lifted the fragile
figure of the orator high in the air, and set him down