“I’m Orion,” said the little boy, “and I’m stone blind.”  He began to strut up and down the nursery with his eyes tightly shut.

“Apollo, please, may I get on your shoulder for a bit, and will you lead me to that place where the first sunbeam rises in the east over the sea?”

“Come,” said Fortune, in what Diana would call a “temperish” tone, “we can have no more of that ridiculous story-telling to-night.  Miss Iris, you’ll ask them to be good, won’t you?”

“Yes.  Children, do be good,” said Iris, in her earnest voice.

Diana trotted up to her sister and took her hand.

“I has something most ’portant to tell you,” she said, in a low whisper.  “It’s an awfu’ sorrow, but you ought to know.”

“What is it, Di?”

“Rub-a-Dub has got deaded.”

“Rub-a-Dub?”

“Yes; it is quite true.  I found him stark dead and stiff.  I has put him in the dead-house.”

Iris said nothing.

“And he is to have a public funeral, isn’t he?” said Diana, “and a beautiful insipcron.  Do say he is, and let us have the funeral to-morrow.”

“I am awfully sorry,” said Iris, then; “I did love Rub-a-Dub.  Yes, Di; I’ll think it over.  We can meet after breakfast in the dead-house and settle what to do.”

“There are to be a lot of funerals to-morrow—­I’m so glad,” said Diana, with a chuckle.

She followed Orion into the night-nursery.  He was still walking with his eyes tightly shut and went bang up against his bath, a good portion of which he spilt on the floor.  This put both Fortune and the under-nurse, Susan, into a temper, and they shook him and made him cry, whereupon Diana cried in concert, and poor Iris felt a great weight resting on her heart.

“It is awfully difficult to be a mother to them all,” she thought.  “The usual kind of things don’t seem to please them.  Apollo, what is the matter?  What are you thinking of?”

“I’m only wishing that I might be the real Apollo,” said the boy, “and that I might get quite far away from here.  Things are different here now that mother has gone, Iris.  I don’t like Aunt Jane Dolman a bit.”

“Oh, well, she is our aunt, so I suppose it is wrong not to like her,” answered Iris.

“I can’t help it,” replied Apollo.  “I have a feeling that she means to make mischief.  Why did she come here without being asked?  Iris, shall we go down to dessert to-night, or not?”

“I would much rather not,” answered Iris.

“But father likes us to go.  It is the only time in the day when he really sees us.  I think, perhaps, we ought to get dressed and be ready to go down.”

“I will if you think so, Apollo; but I am very tired and sleepy.”

“Well, I really do.  We must not shirk things if we are to be a bit what mother wants us to be; and now that Aunt Jane has come, poor father may want us worse than ever.”

“I never thought of that,” replied Iris.  “I’ll run and get dressed at once, Apollo.”