"I think most likely they'd be sent to a children's prison, a reformatory, where instead of managing themselves, they would be ruled up all day long and kept continuously at work. They would never be able to come home. Ruffie would be so lonely that he would die of a broken heart. Your father would feel the disgrace and shame of it so much that he would sell the house and the grounds and everything that was in it, and go away to foreign lands and live and die there and never come home again. DO you think that would be a happy thing for all of us?" The little girls were much impressed, though it was difficult to tell beneath their paint and powder how they were taking it. Anstice turned to Josie politely. "Brother Rattleskunk, will you speak now?" For a moment Josie hesitated. "If you let us alone, and let us do what we like, and just do things in the house without interfering, we might be friends." "We might be, but we'll promise nothing," said Georgie. "Well, now we're going into the matter thoroughly. What do you mean to do with yourselves? No lessons, of course. You know how to read and write, but you don't want anything more. You have been born into the world with brains which you don't intend to use. You will grow up, not troubling to open the wonderful treasure chests of knowledge." "Let me tell you of a spoilt child I knew some years ago. She would do no lessons, and her mother gave way to her. I met her at a dinner-party once. She was a pretty girl, but we had some clever people round the table. She was taken in by a French Count, and she couldn't speak a word of French to him. She could take no part in the conversation lest she should show how ignorant she was. When they talked of England as it was in olden times, she knew nothing about it. She asked if the Coliseum at Rome was a play, and whether Whigs and Tories were savages over the seas. Before the evening was over, she was left in a corner by herself. Nobody cared to talk to her, for they thought she must be an idiot, some one who hadn't sense or understanding. I suppose, Brothers Rattleskunk and Wallajinks, you will decide to grow up like that poor girl?" There was a pause, and Anstice, wishing her words to have weight, now turned to Ruffie. "And what does Brother Baggwanda say?" Ruffie's eyes twinkled; he looked from his sisters to Anstice, and from Anstice to his sisters. "Brother Baggwanda is opening his ears, but not his tongue. He will speak when all have spoken." "But he's with us, he's with us, and not with you!" cried the little girls almost simultaneously. Anstice laughed her rippling merry laugh. Then she became grave again.