After the subsequent embraces, Nancy eyed her with some curiosity. "I say, there _was_ a dust-up," she said. "Have you made it up with father, Cis?" "Don't be a fool," said Joan. "She doesn't want you bothering her. It is quite enough that we're jolly glad to have her back." "I was rather dull," said Cicely, with a nervous little laugh, "so I went away for a bit." "Quite right too," said Joan. "I should have done the same, and so would Nancy. We thought of putting up 'Don't be Downtrodden,' but we were afraid mother wouldn't like it, so we put up 'No Popery' instead. It comes to the same thing." "We're doing the Gordon Riots in history," Nancy explained further. "Father was awful at first, Cis, but he has calmed down a lot since. I think Dick poured oil on the troubled waters. Dick is a brick. He gave us half a sovereign each before he went up to Scotland." "We didn't ask him for it," said Nancy. "No," said Joan, "we only told him we were saving up for a camera, and it took a long time out of a bob a week each pocket-money." "Flushed with our success," said Nancy, "we tried father; but the moment was not propitious." "It was your fault," said Joan. "You would hurry it. Directly I said, 'When we get our camera we shall be able to take photographs of the shorthorns,' you heaved a silly great sigh and said, 'It takes _such_ a long time to save up with only a shilling a week pocket-money,' and of course what _could_ he say but that when he was our age he only had sixpence?" "I don't believe it for a moment," said Nancy. "It doesn't matter. He had to say it. I was going to lead up much more slowly. How often has starling told you that if a thing's worth doing at all it's worth doing well?" Here Miss Bird herself appeared at the door and said it was just as she had expected, and had they heard her tell them to do a thing or had they not, because if they had and had then gone and done something else she should go straight to Mrs. Clinton, for she was tired of having her words set at nought, and it was time to take serious measures, although nobody would be more sorry to have to do so than herself, Joan and Nancy being perfectly capable of behaving themselves as they should if they would only set their minds to it and do exactly as she told them.