an ever.

She was certainly not in a hurry to go away. Miss Nelson's room seemed
a magnificent apartment to Susy. She was sure no one could come into
it at present, and she walked round and round it now, examining its
many treasures with a critical and somewhat envious spirit.

Once again, in the course of her wanderings, she came opposite the
picture of the old-fashioned child--the child whose hair was curled in
primitive and stiff ringlets, whose blue eyes looked out at the world
with a somewhat meaningless stare, and whose impossible and rosy lips
were pursed up in an inane smile.

Susy gazed long at this old-world portrait. It was set in a deep frame
of blue enamel, and inside the frame was a gold rim. Susy said to
herself that the picture, old-fashioned though it was, had a very
genteel appearance. Then she began to fancy that the blue eyes and the
lips of the child resembled her own. She pursed up her cherub mouth in
imitation of the old-world lady. She smiled into the pictured eyes of
the child of long ago.

In short Susy became fascinated by the miniature; she longed to
possess it. With the longing came the temptation. Why should she not
take it? The theft, if it could be called by such an ugly name, could
never be traced to her. Not a soul in the place would ever know that
she had been shut up in Miss Nelson's room. Only Ermengarde would
know, and Ermie would not dare to tell.

Susy looked and longed and coveted. She thought of the pleasure this
picture would give her in her own little attic-room at home. How she
would gaze at it, and compare her face with the face of the
old-fashioned child. Susy hated Miss Nelson, and if that good lady
valued the picture, she would be only the more anxious to deprive her
of it.

Miss Nelson had often and often snubbed Susy; she had also been cruel
to Ermengarde. Susy could avenge Ermie as well as herself, if she took
away the miniature.

Susan was not the child long to withstand any sudden keen desire. She
stretched up her hand, lifted the little miniature from its hook on
the wall, and slipped it into the pocket of her pink frock.

Its place looked empty and deserted. Susy did not want its loss to be
discovered too soon. She looked around her, saw another miniature on
the mantelpiece; without waiting even to look at it, she hung it in
the place where the child's picture had been, and then, well pleased,
turned to go. First of all, however, she performed an action w