Unruffled and silent, she passed Mux and went into the other room,
which disappointed Mux terribly. So when he heard Dino coming up the
stairs, he unloaded his disappointment on him.

"We are not going to have them to-day," he announced.

"What do you think we will have? What am I supposed to be thinking of,
little guesser?" Dino called out.

"Oh, I know. Whenever you think we are going to have green peas for
lunch, you run up very quickly. You can't even wait, you love them
so," Mux asserted. "But we won't have any to-day, for we are going to
have cabbage instead. There, now you have it!"

"Now come in and we'll see who makes a worse face about it, you or I!"

With these words Dino took his little brother's hand, and together
they ran into the room. Very soon afterwards, the family all sat down
to their mid-day meal. On most days the children would be telling their
mother about the happenings of the morning. They would all talk at
once until it was quite hard for her to do them all justice. But to-day
it was different. It seemed as if a storm was in the air; everybody
was silent, and on all faces, except one, heavy clouds seemed to be
resting. Nika sat brooding and staring in front of her, for Agnes had
interpreted to her their little brother's words. She swallowed very
hard on every mouthful, because she had to swallow a great deal more
besides. Agnes was frowning so that her whole forehead was like one
huge wrinkle. The mother, too, was busy with deep thoughts, as one
could see from her worried expression.