so much scorn in her demeanor that Elizabeth was disconcerted.

"Why?" she asked anxiously. "Ain't it nice, Sarah Emily?"

"No, it ain't!" snapped Sarah Emily emphatically.

Elizabeth was much taken aback. It was surely not possible that Annie
could do anything impolite or ungenteel--Annie, the only one in the
family whom Aunt Margaret never scolded. She was puzzled and troubled.
There was no one to whom she could take the matter for advice.
Elizabeth had no close confidant. John was the nearest, but there were
so few things John understood. Then one never dared tell Mary
anything. Mary did not mean to be a tell-tale, but somehow everything
she knew always oozed out sooner or later. Yes, this was a puzzle
Elizabeth must work out alone.

"Well," she said at last, determined to uphold Annie at all costs,
"it's all right in stories, anyhow. I mean when people are going to
get married some day. I read about it in that story about Lady Evelina
in the _Chronicle_. Now, if you were going to get married to Tom
Teeter, Sarah Emily----"

Sarah Emily exploded in another spasm of shrieks and giggles. She
leaned against the wall, overcome with laughter, wiping her eyes, and
declaring that if Lizzie didn't hold still she'd be the death of her.

Elizabeth became impatient. Her older self rose up, protesting that
Sarah Emily was very silly, indeed.

"Oh, bother you, Sarah Emily," she cried, "you're a big goose!"

Sarah Emily made a leap towards her. "You jist say that again, Lizzie
Gordon, and I'll give you a clout over the head that'll make you jump."

Elizabeth dodged round to the other side of the table, and promptly
said it again--said it many times, dancing derisively upon her toes and
waving her towel; sang it, too, in the most insulting manner to the
tune of "My Grandmother Lives, etc."

Then ensued a mad chase around the table, attended with uproar and
disaster. A plate fell crashing to the floor, the dish-pan was upset,
the water splashed in all directions, and the small figure with shrieks
of laughter dodged this way and that, followed by the big clumsy one
shouting vengeance.

And then there suddenly fell a great silence as from the heavens. The
door had opened, and Miss Gordon was standing in it. Elizabeth stood
rigid in a pool of dish-water, and instinctively felt to find how many
buttons of her pinafore were undone. Sarah Emily promptly turned away
and went vigorously to work, presenting a sol