"So it seems," remarked Mr. Delaney, when he could at last find a voice. "You have all subjected me to a terrible dream. I am really glad that I have awakened and find that the hobgoblins, and gnomes, and brownies are no less little people than my own four children. But why am I to be disturbed at such a very early hour?"

"If you like, father," said Diana, "we'll pull up all the blinds; then the hot, blazin' sun will come in, and you'll see that it's not early at all; it's late."

Mr. Delaney happened to glance at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece exactly facing the big bed.

"I read on the face of that clock," he said, "that the hour is half-past five. Now, what have you four little children to do, sitting on my bed at half-past five in the morning?"

When Mr. Delaney said this he shook himself slightly and upset Diana's balance, and made Orion choke with silent laughter. Iris and Apollo gazed at him gravely.

"We all made up our minds to do it," said Iris. "We have come to ask you to make a promise, father."

"A promise, my dear children! But you might have waited until the usual hour for getting up. What are you going to wring from me at this inclement moment?"

"I don't exactly know what inclement moment means," said Iris, "but I do know, and so does Apollo--"

"And so do I know all about it," shouted Diana. "You see, father,"

continued the little girl, who spoke rather more than any of the other children, "we has to think of the poor innocents, and the birds and the mice, and the green frogs, and our puppy, and our pug dog, and our--and our--" Here she fairly stammered in her excitement.

"Has a sudden illness attacked that large family?" said Mr. Delaney.

"Please, children, explain yourselves, for if you are not sleepy, I am."

"Yes, father," said Iris, "we can explain ourselves quite easily. The thing is this--we don't want to go away."

"To go away? My dear children, what do you mean?" But as Mr. Delaney spoke he had a very uncomfortable memory of a letter which he had posted with his own hands on the previous evening.

"Yes," said Apollo; "we don't want to go away with her."

"And we don't wish for no aunts about the place," said Diana, clenching her little fist, and letting her big, black eyes flash.

"Now I begin to see daylight," said Mr. Delaney. "So you don't like poor Aunt Jane?"

"Guess we don't," said Orion. "She comed in last night and she made an awful fuss, and she didn't like me 'cos I'm Orion, and 'cos I'm a giant, and 'cos sometimes I has got no eyes. Guess she's afraid of me.

I thought her a silly sort of a body."

"She's an aunt, and that's enough," said Diana. "I don't like no aunts; they are silly people. I want her to go."

"Apollo and I brought the two younger children," continued Iris, "because we thought it best for us all to come. It is not Aunt Jane being here that is so dreadful to me, and so very, very terrible to Apollo," she continued. "It's what she said, father, that we--we were to go away, away from the house and the garden--the garden where mother used to be, and the house where the angel came to fetch mother away--and we are to live with her. She spoke, father, as if it was settled; but it is not true, is it? Tell us, father, that it is not true."

"My poor little children!" said the father. His own ruddy and sunburnt face turned absolutely pale; there was a look in his eyes which Diana could not in the least understand, nor could Orion, and which even Apollo only slightly fathomed; but one glance told Iris the truth.

"When I am away you are to be a mother to the others," seemed at that moment to echo her mother's own voice in her ear. She gulped down a great sob in her throat, and stretching herself by her father's side she put one soft arm round his neck.

"Never mind if it is _really_ settled," she said. "I will try hard to bear it."

"You are about the bravest little darling in the world," said Mr.

Delaney.

"What are you talking about, Iris?" cried Apollo, clutching his sister by her long hair as she spoke. "You say that you will try and bear it, and that father is not to mind? But father must mind. If I go to Aunt Jane Dolman's, why--why, it will kill me." And the most beautiful of all the heathen G.o.ds cast such a glance of scorn at his parent at that moment that Mr. Delaney absolutely quailed.

"For goodness' sake, Apollo, don't eat me up," he said. "The fact is this, children; I may as well have the whole thing out. Aunt Jane came last night and took me by surprise. I have been very lonely lately, and you know, you poor little mites, you cannot be left to the care of Fortune. She is a very good soul, but you want more than her to look after you, and then Miss Stevenson--I never did think her up to much."

"Father," said Apollo, "you have no right to abuse our spiritual pastors and masters."

Notwithstanding his heathenish name, it will be seen by this remark that some of his time was occupied learning the church catechism.

"I stand corrected, my son," said Mr. Delaney, "or, rather, at the present moment, I lie corrected. Well, children, the truth must out--Aunt Jane took me by surprise. She promises she will look after you and be a mother to you."

"We don't want no other mother, now that our own mother is gone, except Iris," said Apollo. "We won't have Aunt Jane for a mother."

"She is a howid old thing, and I hate aunts," said Diana.

"Well, children, I am very sorry for you, but it is too late to do anything now. The whole thing is arranged. I hope you will try to be good, and also to be happy with Aunt Jane. You won't find her half bad when you get to know her better, and of course I won't be very long away, and when I come back again--"

"Please don't say any more, father," interrupted Iris. She slipped off the bed and stood very pale and still, looking at her father with eyes which, notwithstanding all her efforts, were full of reproach.

"Come, children," she said to the others, "let poor father have his sleep out. It is quite early, father, and--and we understand now."

"Do say you are not angry with me, you dear little kids. I would not hurt you for the whole world."

"Of course we are not angry, father," said Iris. She bent slowly forward and kissed her father on his forehead. "Go to sleep, father; we are sorry we woke you so early."

"Yes, father, go to s'eep," echoed Diana. "I underland all 'bout it.

You won't have no hobgoblins now to dweam about, for I has got off your knees. They was lovely and flat, and I didn't mind sitting on them one bit."

"All the same, Diana, I am obliged to you for getting off," said Mr.

Delaney, "for I was beginning to get quite a terrible cramp, to say nothing of my sensations at having this giant Orion planting himself on my chest. I will have a long talk with you all, darlings, in the course of the day, and I do hope you won't be very unhappy with your Aunt Jane Dolman."

"We'll be mis'ble, but it can't be helped," said Diana. "I never did like aunts, and I'm never going to, what's more. Come 'long now, sildrens. It's a gweat nuisance getting up so early, particular when father can't help hisself. Can you, father? Go to s'eep now, father.

Come 'long this minute, back to bed, sildrens."

Diana looked really worthy of her distinguished name as she strode down the pa.s.sage and returned to the night-nursery. She and Orion slipped into their respective little cots and lay down without waking either Fortune or Susan, who slept in beds at the opposite side of the room. Iris and Apollo also returned to their beds, and presently Apollo dropped asleep, for, though he had an alarming temper, his fits of pa.s.sion never lasted long. But Iris did not close her bright brown eyes again that morning. She lay awake, full of troubled thoughts--thoughts far too old for her tender years.

It was one of Fortune's fads never on any occasion to awaken a sleeping child, and as the other children slept rather longer than usual after their early waking, breakfast was in consequence full half an hour late in the day-nursery that morning. At last, however, it was finished. No special lessons had been attended to since mother had gone away to the angels, and the children, s.n.a.t.c.hing up their hats, rushed off as fast as possible to the garden. When they got there they all four breathed freely. This at least was their own domain--their fairyland, their country of adventure. From here they could travel to goodness only knew where--sometimes to the stars with bright Apollo and brave Orion--sometimes to happy hunting fields with Diana, the G.o.ddess of the chase, and sometimes they might even visit the rainbow, with sweet Iris as their companion.

There never were happier children than these four in that lovely, lovely beyond words, garden. When the children went into it, it seemed as if an additional ray of sunshine had come out to fill all the happy world with light and love and beauty. The bees hummed more industriously than ever, the flowers opened their sweet eyes and gazed at the children, the animals came round them in a group.

On this special morning, however, Diana's dear little face looked very grave and full of business.

"It's most 'citing," she said. "'Fore we does anything else we must 'tend to the funerals--there is such a lot of dead 'uns to bury this morning. Come 'long to the dead-house at once, Iris."

"I must smell the Scotch roses first," answered Iris.

"You can do that afterwards, can't you? There's poor Rub-a-Dub. We has to 'cide whether he is to have a public or a pwivate funeral, or whether he is just to be sewn up in dock leaves, and put into the gwound p'omisc's."

Diana had a great facility for taking up long words, which she always used in the most matter-of-fact style, not in the least caring how she p.r.o.nounced them.

The other children could not help laughing at her now, and the four hurried off as fast as they possibly could to the dead-house.