Up jumped Miss Mohun, and so did Gillian, half in consternation, half to shield the boy from her wrath.  In a few moments they beheld a puddle on the mat at the bottom of the oak stairs, while a stream was descending somewhat as the water comes down at Lodore, while Fergus’s voice could be heard above—–­

’Don’t, Varley!  You see how it will act.  The string of the humming-top moves the pump handle, and that spins.  Oh!’

‘Master Fergus!  Oh—–­h, you bad boy!’

The shriek was caused by the avenging furies who had rushed up the back stairs just as Miss Mohun had darted up the front, so as to behold, on the landing between the two, the boys, one spinning the top, the other working the pump which stood in its own trough of water, receiving a reckless supply from the tap in the passage.  The maid’s scream of ‘What will your aunt say?’ was answered by her appearance, and rush to turn the cock.

‘Don’t, don’t, Aunt Jane,’ shouted Fergus; ’I’ve almost done it!  Perpetual motion.’  He seemed quite unconscious that the motion was kept up by his own hands, and even dismay could not turn him from being triumphant.

‘Oh!  Miss Jane,’ cried Mrs. Mount, ’if I had thought what they boys was after.’

‘Mop it up, Alice,’ said Aunt Jane to the younger girl.  ’No don’t come up, Ada; it is too wet for you.  It is only a misdirected experiment in hydraulics.’

‘I told him not,’ said Clement Varley, thinking affairs serious.

‘Fergus, I am shocked at you,’ said Gillian sternly.  ’You are frightfully wet.  You must be sent to bed.’

‘You must go and change,’ said Aunt Jane, preventing the howl about to break forth.  ’My dear boy, that tap must be let alone.  We can’t have cataracts on the stairs.’

‘I didn’t mean it, Aunt Jane; I thought it was an invention,’ said Fergus.

’I know; but another time come and ask me where to try your experiments.  Go and take off those clothes; and you, Clement, you are soaking too.  Run home at once.’

Gillian, much scandalised, broke out—–­

‘It is very naughty.  At home, he would be sent to bed at once.’

‘I am not Mrs. Halfpenny, Gillian,’ said Aunt Jane coldly.

‘Jane has a soft spot for inventions, for Maurice’s sake,’ said her sister.

’I can’t confound ingenuity and enterprise with wanton mischief, or crush it out for want of sympathy,’ said Miss Mohun.  ’Come, we must return to our needles.’

If Aunt Jane had gone into the state of wrath to be naturally expected, Gillian would have risen in arms on her brother’s behalf, and that would have been much pleasanter than the leniency which made her views of justice appear like unkindness.

This did not dispose her to be the better pleased at an entreaty from the two children to be allowed to join Mrs. Hablot’s class on Sunday.  It appeared that they had asked Aunt Jane, and she had told them that their sister knew what their mother would like.