Malvina, seized maybe with sudden doubts as to whether she had
behaved with discretion, appears to have replied evasively. Ten
minutes later she was lying asleep, the golden head pillowed on the
round white arm; as Mrs. Muldoon on her way down to the kitchen saw
for herself. And the twins, fortunate enough to find a side door
open, slipped into the house unnoticed and scrambled back into their
beds.

It was quarter past nine when Mrs. Arlington came in herself and
woke them up. She was short-tempered with them both and had
evidently been crying. They had their breakfast in the kitchen.

During lunch hardly a word was spoken. And there was no pudding.
Mr. Arlington, a stout, florid gentleman, had no time for pudding.
The rest might sit and enjoy it at their leisure, but not so Mr.
Arlington. Somebody had to see to things--that is, if they were not
to be allowed to go to rack and ruin. If other people could not be
relied upon to do their duty, so that everything inside the house
and out of it was thrown upon one pair of shoulders, then it
followed as a natural consequence that that pair of shoulders could
not spare the necessary time to properly finish its meals. This it
was that was at the root of the decay of English farming. When
farmers' wives, to say nothing of sons and daughters old enough one
might imagine to be anxious to do something in repayment for the
money and care lavished upon them, had all put their shoulders to
the wheel, then English farming had prospered. When, on the other
hand, other people shirked their fair share of labour and
responsibility, leaving to one pair of hands . . .

It was the eldest Arlington girl's quite audible remark that pa