A stifled cry of dismay broke from the four shocked listeners--a cry
they could not repress. "Aunt Pike!" Aunt Pike, of all people, to come
to live with them! Oh, it was too dreadful! It could not be--they
could never bear it! She had stayed with them once for a fortnight, and
it might have been a year from the impression it had left on their
memories. When she had left they had had a thanksgiving service in the
nursery, and Betty--solemn Betty--had prayed aloud, "From Aunt Pike,
pestilence, and famine, please deliver us."

And now this dreaded aunt was to be asked to come again--not for a
fortnight only, but for many fortnights; and not as a guest, but as head
and mistress of them all, to manage them, to order them about, to make
them do as she chose. Oh, it was overwhelming, appalling, too appalling
to be true!

"But there is Anna!" gasped Kitty.

"I know," said Dr. Trenire, who really felt nearly as bad about it as
did his children. "Anna will live here too, probably. Of course we
could not expect her mother to leave her."

This was the hardest blow, the final drop of bitterness their cup could
hold, the last straw on four overburthened camels.

"But we all hate Anna," said Betty with slow, deliberate emphasis;
"and we shall hate her more if she is here always, wanting to play with
us, and go about with us, and--and--"

"Betty, those remarks are unworthy of you," said her father gravely.