and with an
outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push.

"Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then? I
shall go down: I can smell the dinner going in."

Tom hurried down-stairs and left poor Maggie. As she stood crying before
the glass, she felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and
endure the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom, and
Lucy, and Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her
uncles, would laugh at her. If Tom had laughed at her, of course every
one else would; and, if she had only let her hair alone, she could have
sat with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! What
could she do but sob?

"Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said Kezia, entering the
room hurriedly. "What have you been a-doing? I never saw such a fright!"

"Don't, Kezia," said Maggie, angrily. "Go away!"

"But I tell you, you're to come down, Miss, this minute: your mother
says so," said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand to
raise her from the floor.

"Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner," said Maggie, resisting
Kezia's arm. "I shan't come."

"Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Kezia, going
out again.

"Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room ten minutes
after, "why don't you come and have your dinner? There's lots o'
goodies, and mother says you're to come. What are you crying for?"

Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard and unconcerned; if _he_ had been
crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried, too. And there was the
dinner, so nice; and she was _so_ hungry. It was very bitter.

But Tom was not altogether hard. He went and put his head near her, and
said, in a lower, comforting tone: "Won't you come, then, Maggie? Shall
I bring you a bit of pudding when I've had mine--and a custard and
things?"

"Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more tolerable.

"Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door and
said: "But you'd better come, you know. There's the dessert, you know."

Maggie's tears had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom left her.
His good nature had taken off the keenest edge of her suffering.

Slowly she rose from among her scattered locks, and slowly she made her
way down-stairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against the
frame of the dining-parlour door, peeping in when it was ajar