he knew.
"Don't scold her. I told her to do it."

"You did not, David; don't you tell lies for me! You just told me how to
do it and I went and done it myself. I'm playing prima donna, Aunt
Maria," she explained, though she knew it was a futile attempt at
justification. "I'm playing I'm a big singer, so I had to fix up in this
dress and put my hair down this way and fix my face."

"Great singer--march in here!" The woman had fully regained her voice.
"It's a bad girl you are! To think of your making such a monkey of
yourself when I leave you go up in the garret to play! This ends playing
in the garret. Next Saturday you sew! Ach, yes, you just come in," she
commanded, for Phoebe hung back as they entered the house. "You come
right in here and let all the women see how nice you play when I leave
you go up in the garret instead of make you sew. This here's the tramp I
found," she announced as she led her into the room where the women sat
around the quilting frame and quilted.

"What!" several of them exclaimed as they turned from their sewing and
looked at the child. Granny Hogendobler and David Eby's mother, however,
smiled.

"What's on your face?" asked one woman sternly.

Phoebe hung her head, abashed.

"That's how nice she plays when I leave her go up on the garret and have
a nice time instead of making her sew like she always has to Saturdays,"
Aunt Maria said in sharp tones which told the child all too plainly of
the displeasure she had caused.

"I didn't mean," Phoebe looked up contritely, "I didn't mean to be bad
and make you cross. I was just playing I was a big singer and I put cold
cream and paint and powder on my face----"

"Cream!"

"Paint!"

"Powder!"

The shrill staccato words of the women set the child trembling.

"But--but," she faltered, "it'll all wash off." She gave a convincing
nod of her head and rubbed a hand ruefully across the grotesquely
decorated cheek. "It's just cream and red-beet juice and flour."

"Did I ever!" exclaimed the mother of Phares Eby.

"I-to-goodness!" laughed Granny Hogendobler.

"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," quoted one of the other women.

"Come here, Phoebe," said the mother of David Eby, and that woman, a
thin, alert little person with tender, kindly eyes, drew the unhappy
little girl to her. "You poor, precious child," she said, "it's a shame
for us all to sit here and look at you as if we wanted to eat you.
You've just been playing, haven't you?" She