A hoarse guffaw came from the kitchen. "There goes Newbigging! Ho! ho! ho! There goes Gunn! Gie a blink, Phœbe, and knock Windmill off. There he goes—ho! ho! ho!"
"What are they up to, Derek?"
"Phœbe is sticking apple-seeds to her eyelids. She names each of them for one of the boys, and the one that hangs on longest" . . . .
"Now there's only Hughie and the two chaps in yonder." . . . "Aw, she put a extra dod o' spit on them, ye can be sure." Mrs. Machin spoke. "Sh. They'll hear you." A smothered burst of laughter followed, and a whispered—"There go Hugh and the master! Gosh! There's only Captain Vale left." Mrs. Machin then slammed the door.
"Now, Ted," said Derek, sternly, "are you going to play or are you not?"
Edmund was going to play, and played so well that he won two games, with Derek many points behind. Then supper was laid on the table—good cold beef, cheese, and baked apples, and Derek fetched two bottles of ale from the cupboard beneath the stairs. As they sat down, the party from the kitchen filed past on their way to bed, Phœbe in a state of impending collapse from stifled laughter. She had removed her spectacles for the test of the apple-pips, and, being almost blind without them, she clutched Hughie's sleeve for guidance.
The brothers, left to themselves, grinned at each other across the table.
"This place of yours is a regular picnic," said Edmund. "Tell me, are you always so hilarious? I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I like your old dining room. That china greyhound on the chimney-piece seems a friendly soul, and, even the pictures, though at first glance they seem depressing, are really jolly. I've never seen dying
