Won't you sit down?
Our mother is not at home, but we are." "Would you really like to have me stay ?" asked Selwyn.
"Well," admitted Drina frankly, "of course we can't tell yet how interesting you are because we don't know you.

We are trying to be polite--" and, in a fierce whisper, turning on the smaller of the boys--"Winthrop! take your finger out of your mouth and stop staring at guests! Billy, you make him behave himself." The blond-haired M.F.H.reached for his younger brother; the infant culprit avoided him and sullenly withdrew the sucked finger but not his fascinated gaze.
"I want to know who he ith," he lisped in a loud aside.
"So do I," admitted a tiny maid in stickout skirts.
Drina dropped the cat, swept the curly hair from her eyes, and stood up very straight in her kilts and bare knees.
"They don't really mean to be rude," she explained; "they're only children." Then, detecting the glimmering smile in Selwyn's eyes, "But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us who you are because we all would like to know, but we are not going to be ill-bred enough to ask." Their direct expectant gaze slightly embarrassed him; he laughed a little, but there was no response from them.
"Well," he said, "as a matter of fact and record, I am a sort of relative of yours--a species of avuncular relation." "What is that ?" asked Drina coldly.
"That," said Selwyn, "means that I'm more or less of an uncle to you.
Hope you don't mind.

You don't have to entertain me, you know." "An uncle!" repeated Drina.
"Our uncle ?" echoed Billy.

"You are not our soldier uncle, are you?
You are not our Uncle Philip, are you ?" "It amounts to that," admitted Selwyn.

"Is it all right ?" There was a dead silence, broken abruptly by Billy; "Where is your sword, then ?" "At the hotel.