“Your mother's very ill, Jeremy, dear. You must be a very good boy, and help your sisters.” “Mightn't I go for just a minute?” “No, certainly not.” They all went upstairs. Then, in the schoolroom, Miss Jones said an amazing thing. She said: “I must tell you all, children, that you've got a new little sister.” “A new sister!” screamed Mary. Helen said: “Oh, Miss Jones!” Jeremy said: “What did she come for just now, when Mother is ill?” “God wanted her to come, dear,” said Miss Jones. “You must all be very kind to her, and do all you can--” She was interrupted by a torrent of questions from the two girls. What was she like? What was her name? Could she walk? Where did she come from? Did Father and Mother find her in Drymouth? And so on. Jeremy was silent. At last he said: “We don't want any more girls here.” “Better than having another boy,” said Helen. But he would not take up the challenge. He sat on his favourite seat on the window-ledge, dragged up a reluctant Hamlet to sit with him, and gazed out down into the garden that was misty now in the evening golden light, the trees and the soil black beneath the gold, the rooks slowly swinging across the sty above the farther side of the road. Hamlet wriggled. He always detested that he should be cuddled, and he would press first with one leg, then with another, against Jeremy's coat; then he would lie dead for a moment, suddenly springing, with his head up, in the hope that the surprise would free him; then he would turn into a snake, twisting his body under Jeremy's arm, and dropping with a flop on to the floor. All these manoeuvres to-day availed him nothing; Jeremy held his neck in a vice, and dug his fingers well into the skin. Hamlet whined, then lay still, and, in the midst of indignant reflections against the imbecile tyrannies of man, fell, to his own surprise, asleep.