express her approval of its spirit. Johnnie's flowers were
indeed wooden, but his birds and insects, though flat and rough, were
all intended to be alive. He had too much directness, and also real
vitality, to carve poor dead birds hanging by the legs with torn and
ruffled feathers, and showing pathetically their quenched and faded
eyes; he wanted his birds to peck and his beetles to be creeping.
Luckily for himself, he saw no beauty in death and misery, still less
could think them ornamental.

Emily praised his wooden work, and the girls, with a sort of shy
delight, questioned her: "Was it really true, then, that Miss Fairbairn
was gone, and was not coming back to England for weeks and weeks?" "Yes,
really true; why had they made themselves so miserable about nothing?"
"Ah, you were so kind; but, dear Mrs. Walker, you know very well how
horrid it would have been to have a step-mother."

Emily sat down and looked about her. A very large slate, swung on a
stand like a looking-glass, stood on the edge of the carpet. On it were
written these words: "I cry, 'Jam satis,'" John's writing evidently, and
of great size. She had no time, however, to learn what it meant, for,
with a shout like a war-whoop, Johnnie's voice was heard below, and
presently, as it were, driving his little brothers and sisters before
him, Johnnie himself came blundering up-stairs at full speed with
Crayshaw on his back. "Bolt it, bolt the door," panted Crayshaw; and
down darted one of the girls to obey. "And you kids sit down on the
floor every one of you, that you mayn't be theen below, and don't make a
thound," said Johnnie, depositing Crayshaw on a couch, while Barbara
began to fan him. "They're coming up the lane," were Johnnie's first
words, when the whole family was seated on the floor like players at
hunt the slipper. "You won't tell, Mrs. Walker?"

"Not tell what, to whom?" asked Emily.

"Why that fellow, Cray's brother, wrote to Mr. Brandon that he was
coming, and should take him away. It's a shame."

"It's a shame," repeated Crayshaw, panting. "I wish the Continent had
never been invented."

"Hold your tongue; if you make yourself pant they'll hear you. Hang
being done good to! Why, you've been perfectly well till this day, for
the last six months----"

"And should have been now," Crayshaw gasped out, "only I ran over here
just after my lunch."

Emily, the only person seated on a chair, John's throne in fact, was far
back in the room