am."

"Yes, father," said Iris, "we can explain ourselves quite easily. The
thing is this--we don't want to go away."

"To go away? My dear children, what do you mean?" But as Mr. Delaney
spoke he had a very uncomfortable memory of a letter which he had
posted with his own hands on the previous evening.

"Yes," said Apollo; "we don't want to go away with her."

"And we don't wish for no aunts about the place," said Diana,
clenching her little fist, and letting her big, black eyes flash.

"Now I begin to see daylight," said Mr. Delaney. "So you don't like
poor Aunt Jane?"

"Guess we don't," said Orion. "She comed in last night and she made an
awful fuss, and she didn't like me 'cos I'm Orion, and 'cos I'm a
giant, and 'cos sometimes I has got no eyes. Guess she's afraid of me.
I thought her a silly sort of a body."

"She's an aunt, and that's enough," said Diana. "I don't like no
aunts; they are silly people. I want her to go."

"Apollo and I brought the two younger children," continued Iris,
"because we thought it best for us all to come. It is not Aunt Jane
being here that is so dreadful to me, and so very, very terrible to
Apollo," she continued. "It's what she said, father, that we--we were
to go away, away from the house and the garden--the garden where