"Brat!" says Barbara, laughing, "where has the analogy between me and
the man who pulled up the window in the train for the old woman gone
to?"

"Mother said I was to look as nice as I could," say I, casting a rueful
glance at the tea-board, at the large plum loaf, at the preparations for
temperate conviviality. I have sat down on the threadbare blue-and-red
hearth-rug, and am shading my face with a pair of cold pink hands, from
the clear, quick blaze. "What _am_ I to wear?" I say, gloomily. "None of
my frocks are ironed, and there is no time now. I shall look as if I
came out of the dirty clothes-basket! Barbara, dear, will you lend me
your blue sash? Last time I wore mine the Brat upset the gum-bottle over
my ends."

"Let us each have the melancholy pleasure of contributing something
toward the decking of our victim," says Algy, with a grin; "have my
mess-jacket!"

"Have as many beads as you can about you," puts in Bobby. "Begums always
have plenty of beads."

A little pause, while the shifting flame-light makes small pictures of
us on the deep-bodied teapot's sides, and throws shadowy profiles of us
on the wall.

"Mother said, too, that I was to try and not say any of my unlucky
things!" I remark, presently.

"Do not tell him," says Bobby, ill-naturedly, "as you told poor Captain