had no patience with “fads and fancies;” and as, on the whole, the children had prospered wonderfully under her care and she was really good to them, Grandmamma did not often interfere, nor did it ever occur to them to complain, even though nowadays children would, I think, find some of old Nurse’s rules very much to be complained of indeed.  Of these one was, that if the children did not finish the bowl of bread and milk at breakfast it was put away in the nursery cupboard and had to be eaten, cold and uninviting-looking as it had then become, before anything else at dinner-time.  This was a sore trouble to the little brother and sister, more especially as if they did not finish the bread and milk they could not expect to have the treat waiting for them downstairs in the dining-room at Grandpapa’s and Grandmamma’s breakfast—­of a cup of weak but sweet tea and a tiny slice of bread and butter or toast, with sometimes the tops of the old people’s eggs, and at others a taste of honey, or marmalade, or strawberry jam, all daintily set out by Grandmamma’s own little white hands!

So for every reason Duke and Pamela wished to eat up the bread and milk to the last spoonful.  It was not that they did not like it—­it was as good and nice as bread and milk could be, and they were not dainty.  Only they could not eat so much!  This morning they had not half finished when their appetites began to flag.  Perhaps it was with the excitement of Nurse being absent—­perhaps they chattered and “played” over their breakfast, not having her to keep them up to the mark—­I can’t say.  But the bowls were still deplorably full, though the milk was no longer steaming, and the little squares of bread had lost their neat shape, and were all “squashy” together, when Duke threw down his spoon in despair.

“I can’t eat any more, sister.  I cannot try any more.”

Pamela opened her lips to make some reproach; she was a very “proper” little girl, as you have probably discovered, but the words died away before they were uttered, as her eyes fell on her own bowl, and with a deep sigh she said: 

“I’m afraid I can’t finish mine either.  And after us saying to Nurse about going to be so good.”

Her blue eyes began to look very dewy.  Duke, who could not bear to see his dear “sister” sad, spoke out (in Nurse’s absence be it observed) valiantly—­more so, it must be confessed, than was his wont.

“I don’t see that it’s naughty of us not to eat more when us isn’t hungry for more. I think it would be like little pigs to eat more than they want.  Little pigs would go on eating all day just ’cos they’re too silly, and they’ve got nothing else to do.”

“But,” objected Pamela, “us haven’t eaten as much as us can, Duke, for you know downstairs us could eat Grandmamma’s treat. I could—­I could snap it up in a minute, and the tea too, and yet I can’t eat any more bread and milk!” and she gazed at the bowl with a puzzled as well as doleful expression.  “I’m afraid—­yes, I’m afraid, Duke, that us is dainty like Master Frederick and Miss Lucy in ‘Amusing Tales.’  And Nurse says it is so very naughty to be dainty when so many poor children would fink our bread and milk such a great treat.”