Next day but one was Saturday. Father gave us a talking to--with
other things.

The worst was when Dora couldn't get her shoe on, so they sent for
the doctor, and Dora had to lie down for ever so long. It was
indeed poor luck.

When the doctor had gone Alice said to me--

'It IS hard lines, but Dora's very jolly about it. Daisy's been
telling her about how we should all go to her with our little joys
and sorrows and things, and about the sweet influence from a sick
bed that can be felt all over the house, like in What Katy Did, and
Dora said she hoped she might prove a blessing to us all while
she's laid up.'

Oswald said he hoped so, but he was not pleased. Because this sort
of jaw was exactly the sort of thing he and Dicky didn't want to
have happen.

The thing we got it hottest for was those little tubs off the
garden railings. They turned out to be butter-tubs that had been
put out there 'to sweeten'.

But as Denny said, 'After the mud in that moat not all the perfumes
of somewhere or other could make them fit to use for butter again.'

I own this was rather a bad business. Yet we did not do it to
please ourselves, but because it was our duty. But that made no
difference to our punishment when Father came down. I have known