oped down on the floor and poked about till I found the little
round hole where the spark had fallen.

"There," I said, "that's the burnt place."

Uncle Geoff stooped too and examined the hole. The look on his face
changed. I could almost have fancied he was going to smile. He began
sniffing as if he did not understand what he smelt.

"_That_ can't have made such a smell of burning," he said.

"No, it was the slice of toast that fell into the fire that made most
of the smell," I said. "It had some butter on. We were toasting our
bread--that was what made Mrs. Partridge so angry."

"How did you toast it?"

Tom, who was nearest the fireplace, held up the poker and tongs, on
which still hung some bits of string.

"We made holes in the bread and tied it on," he said.

At this Uncle Geoff's face really did break into a smile. All might have
ended well, had it not unfortunately happened that just at this moment
Mrs. Partridge--who had taken till now to arrive at the top of the
stairs--came stumping into the room. Her face was very red, and she
looked, as she would have said herself, very much "put about."

"Oh dear, sir," she exclaimed, when she saw Uncle Geoff on his knees on
the floor, "oh dear, sir, you shouldn't trouble yourself so."

"I wanted to see the damage for myself," he said, getting up as he
spoke, "it isn't very bad after all. Your fears have exaggerated it,
Partridge."

Mrs. Partridge did not seem at all pleased.

"Well, sir," she said, "it's natural for me to have felt upset. And even
though not much harm may have been done to the carpet, think what might
be, once children make free with the fire. And it isn't even that, I
feel the most, sir--children will be children and need constant looking
after--but it's their rudeness, sir--the naughty way they've spoken to
me ever since they came. From the very first moment I saw that Miss
Audrey had made up her mind to take her own way, and no one else's, and
it's for their own sake I speak, sir. It's a terrible pity when children
are allowed to be rude and disobedient to those who have the care of
them, and it's a thing at my age, sir, I can't stand."

Uncle Geoff's face clouded over again. Mrs. Partridge had spoken quite
quietly and seemingly without temper. And now that I look back to it, I
believe she did believe what she said. She had worked herself up to
think us the naughtiest children there ever were, and really did not
know how much was her own