“There wouldn’t have been if it had been only here.  And, oh dear, the irresistible fun of Jock’s capering antics, and Rob moving by mechanism, as stiff and obedient as the giant porter to Flibberti-gibbet.”  Carey stopped to laugh.  “But then I never thought of their going on to present themselves to Ellen in the middle of a mighty and solemn dinner party!  All the grandees, the county people (this in a deep and awful voice), sitting up in their chignons of state, in the awful pause during the dishing-up, when these five little wretches, in finery filched from the rag bag, appear on the smooth lawn, mown and trimmed to the last extent for the occasion, and begin to strike up at their shrillest, close to the open window.  Ellen rises with great dignity.  I fancy I can see her, sending out to order them off.  And then, oh dear, Jock only hopping more frantically than ever round the poor man the hired waiter, who, you must know, is the undertaker’s chief mute, and singing—-

’Leedle, leedle, leedle,
Our cat’s dead. 
What did she die wi’? 
Wi’ a sair head. 
A’ you that kenned her
While she was alive,
Come to her burying
At half-past five.’

And then the Colonel, bestirring himself to the rescue, with ’go away boys, or I’ll send for the police.’  And then the discovery, when in the height of his wrath, Jock perked up, and said, ’I thought you would like to have the ladies amused, Uncle Robert.’  He did box his ears then—-small blame to him, I must say.  I could stand that better than the jaw Ellen gave us afterwards.  I beg your pardon, Mary, but it really was one.  She thinks us far gone in the ways of depravity, and doesn’t willingly let her little girls come near us.”

“Isn’t that a pity?”

“I don’t know; Essie and Ellie have feelings in their clothes, and don’t like our scrambling walks, and if Ellie does get allured by our wicked ways, she is sure to be torn, or splashed, or something, and we have shrieks and lamentations, and accusations of Jock and Joe, amid floods of tears; and Jessie comes to the rescue, primly shaking her head and coaxing her little sister, while she brings out a needle and thread.  I can’t help it, Mary.  It does aggravate me to look at her!”

Mary could only shake her head with a mixture of pity, reproof, and amusement, and as a safer subject could not help asking—-

“By the bye, why do you confuse your friends by having all the two families named in pairs?”

“We didn’t know we were going to live close together,” said Carey.  “But the fact is that the Janets were named after their fathers’ only sister, who seems to have been an equal darling to both.  We would have avoided Robert, but we found that it would have been thought disrespectful not to call the boy after his grandfather and uncle.”

“And Bobus is a thoroughly individual name.”

“Then Jock’s name is John Lucas, and we did mean to call him by the second, but it wouldn’t stick.  Names won’t sometimes, and there’s a formality in Lucas that would never fit that skipjack of a boy.  He got called Jock as a nickname, and now he will abide by it.  But Joseph Armine’s second name does fit him, and so we have kept to it; and Barbara was dear grandmamma’s own name, and quite our own.”