You know--the kids who came at Christmas. You must be jolly to
them, and see that they have a good time, don't you know.'

We remembered them right enough--they were little pinky, frightened
things, like white mice, with very bright eyes. They had not been
to our house since Christmas, because Denis, the boy, had been ill,
and they had been with an aunt at Ramsgate.

Alice and Dora would have liked to get the bedrooms ready for the
honoured guests, but a really good housemaid is sometimes more
ready to say 'Don't' than even a general. So the girls had to
chuck it. Jane only let them put flowers in the pots on the
visitors' mantelpieces, and then they had to ask the gardener which
kind they might pick, because nothing worth gathering happened to
be growing in our own gardens just then.

Their train got in at 12.27. We all went to meet them. Afterwards
I thought that was a mistake, because their aunt was with them, and
she wore black with beady things and a tight bonnet, and she said,
when we took our hats off-- 'Who are you?' quite crossly.

We said, 'We are the Bastables; we've come to meet Daisy and
Denny.'

The aunt is a very rude lady, and it made us sorry for Daisy and
Denny when she said to them--

'Are these the children? Do you remember them?' We weren't very
tidy, perhaps, because we'd been playing brigands in the shrubbery;
and we knew we should have to wash for dinner as soon as we got