"And this?" asked Gideon Whipple, indicating the moralist.

"The brother of that"--Juliana pointed. "He did his best in the way of
advice, I gather, but neither of the pair would listen to him. He seems
to be safely conservative, but not to have much influence over his
fellows."

"Willing to talk about it, though," said Sharon Whipple, pointedly.

The girl now glowered at each of them in turn.

"I don't care!" she muttered. "I will, too, run away! You see!"

"It's what they call a fixed idea," explained Juliana. "She doesn't care
and she will, too, run away. But where is Mrs. Harvey?"

"Poor soul!" murmured Sharon. "Think what a lot she's missed already! Do
call her, my dear!"

Juliana stepped to the doorway and called musically into the dusky hall:
"Mrs. Harvey! Mrs. Harvey! Come quickly, please! We have something
lovely to show you!"

The offenders were still to be butchered to make a Whipple holiday.

"Coming!" called a high voice from far within.

The Wilbur twin sickeningly guessed this would be the cruel stepmother.
Real cruelty would now begin. Beating, most likely. But when, a moment
later, she stood puzzling in the doorway, he felt an instant relief. She
did not look cruel. She was not even bearded. She was a plump, meekly
prettyish woman with a quick, flustered manner and a soft voice. She
brought something the culprits had not found in their other judges.

"Why, you poor, dear, motherless thing!" she cried when she had assured
herself of the girl's identity, and with this she enfolded her. "I'd
like to know what they've been doing to my pet!" she declared,
aggressively.

"The pet did it all to herself," explained Gideon Whipple.

"I will, too, run away!" affirmed the girl, though some deeper
conviction had faded from the threat.

"Still talking huge high," said Sharon. "But at your age, my young
friend, running away is overchancy." Mrs. Harvey Whipple ignored this.

"Of course you will--run away all you like," she soothed. "It's good
for people to run away." Then she turned amazingly to the Wilbur twin
and spoke him fair as a fellow human. "And who is this dear little boy?
I just know he was kind enough to change clothes with you so you could
run away better! And here you're keeping him in that dress when you
ought to know it makes him uncomfortable--doesn't it, little boy?"

The little boy movingly ogled her with a sidelong glance of gratitude
for what at the moment seemed to be the first