caresses, she clung to her, sobbing as if
her heart would break.

"Oh, auntie! It was so awful!" was all she could say, but she repeated
it again and again, until Miss Allison, who had never seen her so
excited before, was alarmed. The boys, who had run on ahead to the house
again, before she gave way to her feelings, were inclined to look upon
it all as a good joke, for they had no idea how much she had suffered,
and did not like it because she would not speak to them. They changed
their minds when Miss Allison came out of Virginia's room a little
later, and told them that the fright had given the child a nervous
chill, and that she had cried herself to sleep.

"We didn't mean to do it," said Keith, penitently. "We just forgot, and
I'm mighty sorry, truly I am, auntie!"

"I am not scolding you," said Miss Allison, "but if I were either of you
boys, I wouldn't wear my little white flower when I dressed for dinner
to-night. Instead of being the protector of a distressed maiden, as the
old knights would have said, you have done her a wrong,--a serious one I
am afraid,--and that wrong ought to be made right as far as possible
before you are worthy to wear the badge of knighthood again."

"We'll go and beg her pardon right now," said Malcolm.

"No, she is asleep now, and I do not want her to be disturbed. Besides,
a mere apology is not enough. You must make some kind of atonement. The
first thing for you to do, however, is to get some turpentine and remove
that paint. Where did you get it, boys?"

"Out of your paint-box, Aunt Allison," said Malcolm. "We didn't think
you would care. I was only going to take a little, but it soaked in so
fast that I had to use two tubes of it."

"I used more than that," confessed Keith, looking at her with his big
honest eyes; "but I got so interested pretending that I was turning into
a real Indian, that I never thought about its being anybody else's
paint, Aunt Allison, truly I didn't!"

She turned away to hide a smile. The earnest little face above the
striped body was so very comical. Picking up several of the empty tubes
that had been squeezed quite flat, she read the labels. "Rose madder and
carmine," she said, solemnly, "two of my very most expensive paints."

"Dear me!" sighed Malcolm, "then there's another wrong that's got to be
righted. I guess Keith and I weren't cut out for knights. I'm beginning
to think that it's a mighty tough business anyhow."

That night, when the