“Well, I should jolly well hope so. Hal would soon let her know about it if she wasn’t. Those are just the ordinary decent things. It’s not likely one would be anything else. Unless Bunny----” “Hush!” Aunt Lavvy held up a warning finger. “Not a word against my Bunny, if you please. He may be a black, black Bunny among the white ones--but you take his scrapes too seriously, Nina darling. Try and laugh more at Bunny and Ursula--a kind laugh, not a sneering one. It’s only with love and laughter that you can help them over their awkward years.” Privately, Nina thought it priggish to want to help any one with love and laughter--especially your own brothers and sisters. But as she valued Aunt Lavvy’s good opinion only next to Hal’s, she said nothing. And after a reflective pause, Aunt Lavvy went on: “Though I have often----” she broke off. Then started again: “Hasn’t it been rather unfair to Ursula not to send her to school, like you and Gracie? Miss Roberts is a sweet, good soul, but not exactly stimulating, is she? Sometimes, Nina--I’ll confess it to you”--and Aunt Lavvy’s smile was mischievous--“I have longed for her to contradict me just once, so that I could contradict back again!” “Poor old Gums--she is a bit flabby! But I’ll tell Mother what you say about sending Ursula away to school.” In the room which was hers, adjoining Aunt Lavvy’s, Ursula stood for a moment gazing hard at the locked door between; wondering for the hundredth time why, adoring Aunt Lavvy, she still kept the lost key concealed under some letters in her trinket-box. Nina’s voice, a little raised, was audible: “I’ll tell Mother what you say about sending Ursula away to school.” Twang twang--deep down in Ursula’s inside ... that sick feeling of _un_safety--treachery--Aunt Lavvy--Uriah the Hittite.... “Wants what I’ve got, so a plot to send me away.” “_Stick_ to what I’ve got.” Ursula flung a few steps of a dance at the locked door--an impish, impudent dance. And now she felt extraordinarily free and happy--suddenly extricated from her thick syrupy phase of Aunt-Lavvy-worship. Hitherto, she had always been dimly afraid it might grow so intense as to involve her in the final foolishness of--of finding the lost key. [III] IF the Maxwells had had a place in a morality drama or in “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” the name given them would have been Average--Mr. and Mrs. Average....