We Ten | Page 2

and nobody listening. What a din there was, until Felix scrambled up on a chair and pounded on the floor with his cane, and shouted out louder than anybody else: "Who am I talking to? I will be heard!" That made everybody laugh, and brought us back to business; but in a few minutes we were just as bad again.
We're the greatest family for taking sides that you ever heard of, and we do get so excited over things! Anybody that didn't know would surely think we were quarrelling, when really we'd just be having a discussion. I can't see where we got it from, for dear mamma was always just as sweet and gentle, and goodness knows papa doesn't say ten words in a day, and those in the very quietest voice. I can't explain it, but it's a fact all the same that we are a noisy family,--even Nora. Miss Marston--she's our governess--says it's very vulgar to be noisy, and that we ought to be ashamed to be so boisterous; but nurse declares--and I think she's right--that the reason is 'cause "the whole kit an' crew" (she means us) "come just like steps, one after the other, an' one ain't got any more right to rule than the other." You see Phil is seventeen and Alan is five, and between them we eight come in; so we are "just like steps," as she says.
[Illustration: "PLAYING HOUSE WITH THE TWINS AND ALAN UNDER THE SCHOOLROOM TABLE."]
Perhaps I'd better tell you a little about each of us, so you'll understand as I go on: Well, to begin, Phil is a big strong fellow, and just as full of fun and mischief as he can stick; he just loves to play practical jokes, but he isn't so fond of study, I can tell you, and that vexes papa, 'cause he's got it all laid out that Phil's to be a lawyer. Being the eldest, he seems to think he can order us children round as he pleases, and of course we won't stand it, and that makes trouble sometimes. But Phil's generous; he'd give us anything he's got, particularly to Felix, he thinks so much of him,--though of course he wouldn't say so,--so we get along pretty well with him.
Next come Felix and Nannie; they're twins too. I've told you 'most everything about Fee already. He's awfully cross sometimes, when he isn't well, and, as Nora says, he really orders us about more than Phil does; but somehow we don't mind it, 'cause, with all his queerness, he's the life of the house, and he's got some ways that just make us love him dearly: mamma used to call him her "lovable crank." Nannie is devoted to Felix; they're always together. They're trying to teach themselves the violin, and she reads the same books and studies the same lessons as he does, to keep up with him; she's clever, too, now I tell you,--- I'd never get my Greek and Latin perfect if she didn't help me,--though she doesn't make any fuss over it. Nannie is an awfully nice girl,--I don't know what we'd do without her; since mamma died, she's all the time looking after us children, and making things go smoothly. She doesn't "boss" us a bit, and yet, somehow, she gets us to do lots of things. She is real pretty, too,--her eyes are so brown and shiny. It's queer, but we don't any of us mind telling Nannie when we get into scrapes; she talks to us at the time, and makes us feel sorry and ashamed, but she never makes us feel small while she's doing it, and we never hear of it again.
But you wouldn't catch us doing that to Nora! She comes next, you know, and she's really very pretty, though we never tell her so, 'cause she's so stuck up already. Felix puts her into lots of his pictures, and I heard Max Derwent say once that she was beautiful. Max is papa's friend; he is a grown-up man, though he isn't as old as papa. He used to come here a lot, and we children like him first-rate; but now he's in Europe. Well, to come back to Nora: she likes to be called Eleanor, but we don't do it; she is so fussy and so very proper that Felix has nick-named her Miss Prim, and we do call her that. Miss Marston thinks Nora is the best behaved of us all; and sometimes, when Nannie is in papa's study, she lets her go in the drawing-room and entertain people that call. You should see the airs that Nora puts on when she comes upstairs after these occasions; it's too killing for anything! We boys make lots of fun of her, but