Having secured my desk, I ran to catch them, and Mary Ann came scampering after.

All three escaped me, and ran out of the house into the garden, where they plunged about in the snow, shouting and screaming in exultant glee.
What must I do?
If I followed them, I should probably be unable to capture one, and only drive them farther away; if I did not, how was I to get them in?
And what would their parents think of me, if they saw or heard the children rioting, hatless, bonnetless, gloveless, and bootless, in the deep soft snow?
While I stood in this perplexity, just without the door, trying, by grim looks and angry words, to awe them into subjection, I heard a voice behind me, in harshly piercing tones, exclaiming,-- 'Miss Grey! Is it possible?
What, in the devil's name, can you be thinking about ?' 'I can't get them in, sir,' said I, turning round, and beholding Mr.
Bloomfield, with his hair on end, and his pale blue eyes bolting from their sockets.
'But I INSIST upon their being got in!' cried he, approaching nearer, and looking perfectly ferocious.
'Then, sir, you must call them yourself, if you please, for they won't listen to me,' I replied, stepping back.
'Come in with you, you filthy brats; or I'll horsewhip you every one!' roared he; and the children instantly obeyed.

'There, you see!--they come at the first word!' 'Yes, when _you_ speak.' 'And it's very strange, that when you've the care of 'em you've no better control over 'em than that!--Now, there they are--gone upstairs with their nasty snowy feet! Do go after 'em and see them made decent, for heaven's sake!' That gentleman's mother was then staying in the house; and, as I ascended the stairs and passed the drawing-room door, I had the satisfaction of hearing the old lady declaiming aloud to her daughter-in-law to this effect (for I could only distinguish the most emphatic words)-- 'Gracious heavens!--never in all my life--!--get their death as sure as--! Do you think, my dear, she's a _proper person_?
Take my word for it--' I heard no more; but that sufficed.
The senior Mrs.Bloomfield had been very attentive and civil to me; and till now I had thought her a nice, kind-hearted, chatty old body.

She would often come to me and talk in a confidential strain; nodding and shaking her head, and gesticulating with hands and eyes, as a certain class of old ladies are won't to do; though I never knew one that carried the peculiarity to so great an extent.

She would even sympathise with me for the trouble I had with the children, and express at times, by half sentences, interspersed with nods and knowing winks, her sense of the injudicious conduct of their mamma in so restricting my power, and neglecting to support me with her authority.