tear! Her sisters' quarrels were always carried by one or the other
to her mother or her father. How extraordinarily different Robert
and Harold! Their sole anxiety was that neither father nor mother
should be told! If any one threatened to tell, the two, sinking
their private heat, would immediately band together against
the talebearer. Extraordinary men! To that particularly ferocious
struggle that has been described, Anna and Hilda had been attracted
by the din, when Robert, overpowered, was receiving terrible
chastisement, and with cries and prayers had somehow separated
them. Behold, the very first coherent thing these two men did was,
while they still panted and glared upon one another, to unite in
a mutual threat.

"And look out you don't go telling father or mother," panted Harold
to the girls.

"Yes, mind you jolly well don't," panted Robert.

Anna said she certainly would.

Both the extraordinary creatures unitedly rounded on Anna. It might
have been thought that the battle had been, not between them, but
between them and the sisters who had saved them one from another.
Astounding men!

And most astounding of all to Rosalie was that at supper, little
more than an hour later, Harold and Robert presented themselves as
on exceptionally good terms of friendship. They talked and laughed
together. They had a long exchange of views about some football teams.
Harold laid down the law about the principle of four three-quarters