“She says she shall, as soon as she has done giving Janie her music lesson,” replied Barbara, who had rushed up the steep stairs to give this message.

“Mon peruke!” exclaimed Johnnie looking round, “you’d better look out, then, or vous l’attrapperais.”

The walls were hung with pictures, maps, and caricatures; these last were what had attracted Johnnie’s eyes, and the girls began hastily to cover them.

“It’s very unkind of her,” exclaimed Barbara.  “Father never exactly said that we were to have our own playroom to ourselves, but we know, and she knows, that he meant it.”

Then, after a good deal of whispering, giggling, and consulting among the elder ones, the little boys were dismissed; and in the meantime Mr. Nicholas Swan, who, standing on a ladder outside, was nailing the vines (quite aware that the governess was going to have a reception which might be called a warning never to come there any more), may or may not have intended to make his work last as long as possible.  At any rate, he could with difficulty forbear from an occasional grin, while, with his nails neatly arranged between his lips, he leisurely trained and pruned; and when he was asked by the young people to bring them up some shavings and a piece of wood, he went down to help in the mischief, whatever it might be, with an alacrity ill suited to his years and gravity.

“Now, I’ll tell you what, young gentlemen,” he remarked, when, ascending, he showed his honest face again, thrust in a log of wood, and exhibited an armful of shavings, “I’m agreeable to anything but gunpowder, or that there spark as comes cantering out o’ your engine with a crack.  No, Miss Gladys, ex-cuse me, I don’t give up these here shavings till I know it’s all right.”

“Well, well, it ith all right,” exclaimed Johnnie, “we’re not going to do any harm!  O Cray, he’th brought up a log ath big ath a fiddle.  Quelle alouette!”

“How lucky it is that she has never seen Cray!” exclaimed Barbara.  “Johnnie, do be calm; how are we to do it, if you laugh so?  Now then, you are to be attending to the electrifying machine.”

“Swanny,” asked Crayshaw, “have you got a pipe in your pocket?  I want one to lie on my desk.”

“Well, now, to think o’ your asking me such a question, just as if I was ever known to take so much as a whiff in working hours—­no, not in the tool-house, nor nowhere.”

“But just feel.  Come, you might.”

“Well, now, this here is remarkable,” exclaimed Swan, with a start as if of great surprise, when, after feeling in several pockets, a pipe appeared from the last one.

“Don’t knock the ashes out.”

“She’s coming,” said Swan, furtively glancing down, and then pretending to nail with great diligence.  “And, my word, if here isn’t Miss Christie with her!”

A great scuffle now ensued to get things ready.  Barbara darted down stairs, and what she may have said to Aunt Christie while Swan received some final instructions above, is of less consequence than what Miss Crampton may have felt when she found herself at the top of the stairs in the long room, with its brown high-pitched roof—­a room full of the strangest furniture, warm with the sun of August, and sweet with the scent of the creepers.