all her placidity, was firm. The Jampot had to go.

I would like to paint a pleasant picture of the sentiment of the
Cole children on this touching occasion; something, perhaps, in the
vein of tragi-comedy with which Mr. Kenneth Graham embroiders a
similar occasion in his famous masterpiece--but in this case there
was very little sentiment and no tragedy at all. They did not think
of the event beforehand, and then when it suddenly occurred there
was all the excitement of being looked after by Rose, the housemaid,
of having a longer time with their mother in the evening, and, best
of all, a delightful walk with Aunt Amy, whose virginal peace of
mind they attacked from every possible quarter.

The Jampot left in a high state of sulks, declaring to the kitchen
that no woman had ever been so unfairly treated; that her married
sister Sarah Francis, of Rafiel, with whom she was now to live,
should be told all about it, and that the citizens of Rafiel should
be compelled to sympathise. The children were not unfeeling, but
they hated the Jampot's sulks, and while she waited in the nursery,
longing for a word or movement of affection, but wearing a face of
stony disapproval, they stood awkwardly beholding her, and aching
for her to go. She was the more unapproachable in that she wore her
Sunday silks and a heavy black bonnet with shiny rattling globes of
some dark metal that nodded and becked and bowed like live things.
Hamlet, who had, of course, always hated the Jampot, barked at this
bonnet furiously, and would have bitten at it had it been within his
reach. She had meant to leave them all with little sentences about
life and morals; but the noise of the dog, the indifference of the
children, and the general air of impatience for her departure
strangled her aphorisms. Poor Jampot! She was departing to a married