with a laugh; "you would look like a coolie. But let us talk sense again."

Talking sense meant talking business, which on this occasion was the making out of a list of really rather dull things wanted in the house.

Daily life begins early on a sugar plantation. It was now only half-past six, and the house had been astir since half-past four; the children playing, Mrs. Orban working about the house, and Mr. Orban away down on the plantation. The comparative cool of the morning was the best time for any sort of activity. Later, as the fierce December sun rose higher, even the children became listless and disinclined to race about.

After breakfast, when Mr. Orban went back to work, Mrs. Orban gave the children lessons—the only teaching they had ever had. At eleven Mr. Orban returned for early dinner.

To our English ideas the routine seems strange; but the Orban children were used to it, and had no realization of how different was life in their parents' old home. It did not seem at all funny even to the twins to have tea at five, and go to bed at half-past six or seven. They were generally very ready for sleep by then, after their long, exhausting day.

"I say, father," Eustace said suddenly, after a long meditation while business was being discussed, "I can stay up to dinner with mother when you are away—can't I? It will be awfully dull for her if I don't."

"And me too," said Nesta, who never allowed it to be forgotten that, being the same age as Eustace, she claimed the same privileges.

"Rot," said Eustace; "you're only a girl."

"And me too," chimed in Peter.

"Oh, you silly baby," said Eustace impatiently, "what good would you do?"

Peter's delicate face became scarlet.

"I could play games with mother quite as well as you," he said with an angry frown.

"Mother doesn't want amusing like that to keep her from being dull," Eustace declared. "She wants somebody who can talk sensibly like father, and be grown up."

Nesta gave a little derisive laugh.

"Like father!" she repeated; "that is funny. I suppose you think you could be just like him. Why don't you ask him to let you smoke one of his pipes at once?"

"Don't be silly, Nesta," Eustace retorted.

"It's you who are silly," Nesta said, "thinking only boys can be grown up or of any use."

"When you have quite done snapping each other's heads off," interposed their father in his deep, quiet voice, "perhaps you will allow me to speak. As a matter of fact, the mother thinks of going to bed with the cocks and hens herself."

"To bed with the cocks and hens!" repeated Peter, with an expression of blank surprise in his blue eyes.

Now the cocks and hens many of them roosted under the house, which was built on pillars, and set some distance above the ground. It was not an attractive spot at any time, for here there also lived many strange creatures, snakes amongst them.

"Well, not exactly in the henhouse, Peter," said his father, with a twinkle in his eyes. "I dare say she will sleep as usual in her own bedroom. I was referring more to the hour at which she says she means to go to bed—not very long after you."

"Still you will have dinner—won't you, mummie?" Eustace said.

"Certainly," Mrs. Orban answered with a smile; "and I don't think it would be a bad plan for you and Nesta to stay up for it, if you will promise not to get up quite so early in the morning. We will have dinner directly after Peter and Becky are in bed; but we won't sit up late ourselves, any of us."

Mrs. Orban certainly showed no signs of nervousness to-day; the strained expression had left her eyes; she was laughing and talking quite naturally.

"I suppose," thought Eustace, "she was partly upset by the parcel from England."

"Father," Nesta exclaimed, "I'm certain I hear a horse coming up the hill. Who can it be at this time of day?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," said her father; "it might be one of a dozen people. You had better go and sing out 'friend or foe' over the veranda; but I dare say it isn't a horse at all. More probably it is old Hadji with the mail bag that ought to have come with the parcel yesterday."

But the three elder children had disappeared out on to the veranda and were leaning over, straining their eyes down the road that wound up the hill from the plain.

It was a very rough road, with ruts in it sometimes two or three feet deep. During the rains little better than a bog, it was now burnt hard as flint.

There was nothing to be seen though a mile of road was visible, lost now and then among bends; but the children listened breathlessly, and at last Eustace said,—

"It is two horses and a four-wheel buggy, and it has only just begun the hill. Let's go in and tell father."

"Oh, what a bother it is so far off!" Nesta exclaimed, with a sigh of impatience. "We shall have to wait ages to find out who it is."

"Who do you think it can be, father?" Peter asked, as Eustace explained what he believed to be coming.

"How should I know?" Mr. Orban answered with mock seriousness.

"It might be a magician with milk-white steeds, or a fairy godmother, Peter, in a coach made out of pumpkins," said Mrs. Orban.

"O mother!" Peter cried impatiently, "don't be silly—"

The sentence was never completed; it finished in a howl of mingled pain and rage.

"What on earth is the matter now?" asked Mr. Orban.

"Eustace ki-ki-kicked me," stormed Peter, making a dive at his brother with doubled fists; but his father caught him and held him pinioned.

"I can pretty well guess why," said the big man severely. "If he hadn't, I should have spanked you myself. How dare you say 'don't be silly' to your mother?"

Peter hung his head.

"I didn't mean—" he began.

"I should just think you didn't mean it," said his father. "You'll kindly remember you've no right by birth to be a cad, and it is caddish for a gentleman to speak like that to a lady—whether he is ten years old or a hundred."

"Besides," said Eustace, looking furiously at the small culprit, "mother couldn't be silly if she tried."

Peter's humbled expression changed.

"It wasn't for you to kick me," he spluttered resentfully; "I'll kick you back."

"Oh, if you like to be a donkey," began Eustace in a lordly tone.

"Who was donkey first?" demanded Peter.

"I guess," said Nesta, who was accustomed to these scenes, "the buggy may be in sight at the first bend by now. I'm going to look."

Eustace followed.

"Well, Peter, what comes next?" asked Mr. Orban, without letting go the child's wrists.

Peter looked over his shoulder towards his mother—the blue eyes were swimming with tears, there was a choke in his voice.

"I'm sorry, mummie," he gasped.

The next moment he was clasped in his mother's arms, there was a manful struggle with gathering tears, and then like an arrow from a bow Peter was off to the veranda with every intention of thumping Eustace soundly. But the news that greeted him there put the recent fray right out of his mind.

"It is a buggy, Peter," said Nesta, "and I believe Bob Cochrane is driving it."

Now the Cochranes were the Orbans' nearest neighbours—the family that lived only five miles away. It consisted of a father and mother and this young fellow Robert, who was six-and-twenty, the idol and greatest admiration of the Orban children's hearts. In their eyes there was nothing Bob could not do; his shooting, his driving and riding, his jokes, his ways—everything about him was wonderful. A visit from Bob was a splendid event, no matter what the hour of the day.

Bob had a sister who was about the twins' age, and Nesta's