“I have been thinking a great deal,” he said, as he dropped wearily into the roomy old chair by the fireplace—­the chair where their mother used to sit and tell them stories, and hear them say their prayers before they went to bed.  “I have thought over the whole situation, as well as my tired brain will let me, and I have come to the conclusion that for all our sakes I must get some one to come and look after us.”

“O father!” gasped Kitty in utter dismay.  She had never thought that anything as dreadful as this could happen.

“Evidently the management of the house and all of us is beyond Kitty,” went on Dr. Trenire; “and that is not to be wondered at.  We are a large family on the whole, and a doctor’s house is not an ordinary one, and it is not surprising that everything should have got into a state of muddle and confusion.”

Kitty felt, but could not say, that she had never really tried to manage it; that as long as things had gone on without any open fiasco, and they had been able to enjoy themselves, and the servants had not been bad-tempered, she had been quite content.  She could not make that confession now, and if she had it would not have done any good.

“The house must be orderly and well managed, the meals properly arranged and served, and the servants kept in order, and I should be very culpable if I did not see that it was so,” went on her father slowly.  “So, after much thought and hesitation, for I am very reluctant to admit even a comparative stranger into our midst again, I feel that the only thing to be done is to write to your dear mother’s cousin, Mrs. Pike, and ask her to come and make her home with us.  She once offered to, and I think now, if she is still willing, it will be well to accept her kind offer.”

A stifled cry of dismay broke from the four shocked listeners—­a cry they could not repress.  “Aunt Pike!” Aunt Pike, of all people, to come to live with them!  Oh, it was too dreadful!  It could not be—­they could never bear it!  She had stayed with them once for a fortnight, and it might have been a year from the impression it had left on their memories.  When she had left they had had a thanksgiving service in the nursery, and Betty—­solemn Betty—­had prayed aloud, “From Aunt Pike, pestilence, and famine, please deliver us.”

And now this dreaded aunt was to be asked to come again—­not for a fortnight only, but for many fortnights; and not as a guest, but as head and mistress of them all, to manage them, to order them about, to make them do as she chose.  Oh, it was overwhelming, appalling, too appalling to be true!

“But there is Anna!” gasped Kitty.

“I know,” said Dr. Trenire, who really felt nearly as bad about it as did his children.  “Anna will live here too, probably.  Of course we could not expect her mother to leave her.”

This was the hardest blow, the final drop of bitterness their cup could hold, the last straw on four overburthened camels.