This evening, they were pushed in from the breakfast room, with odds and ends of dessert distributed over them. There had been some coconut in it, for I remember my mother's taking a quick glance at a stringy bit of this nut on the cheek of one of them and then putting down her radish with a shiver.

They were pushed gently into the room by Arlene -- whose only part appearing were hands that crept quickly back around to the kitchen side of the door. We had just sat down.

``Tell Mr. Gorboduc what you're doing these days,'' my mother advised the children, ceremonially.

There was an air of revolt about the children -- even irreverence for their own principles. This could be told chiefly from a sort of head tossing and prancing, a horse like balkiness of demeanor. Possibly, the coconut containing dessert had brought up bitter problems of administration. But, at the beginning, this stayed just in the air.

``We go to the park with this nice lady,'' one of them said. ``We have good times.''

This happy bulletin convulsed Mr. Gorboduc. ``You do?'' he asked, between wheezes of laughter. He was forced to wipe his eyes. ``You don't step on the flowers, do you? Eh?''

One of the children maneuvered out of range of the poking index finger.

``No,'' he said. ``We don't.''

Mr. Gorboduc took a swig of his sherry. He was so long thinking that my mother had time to inspect her sherry for dregs. Usually, this was done when attention was diverted by someone else's long, boring story. But this time she was nervous: she was open.