ing?" said she.

"It was a present," replied Annie humbly, but she for the first time
looked a little disturbed. That mourning emblem with her father's and
mother's, and a departed sister's hair in a neat little twist under a
small crystal, grated upon her incessantly. It struck her as a
species of ghastly sentiment, which at once distressed, and impelled
her to hysterical mirth.

"A present," repeated Margaret. "If anybody gave me such a present as
that, I would never wear it. It is simply in shocking bad taste."

"I sometimes fear so," said Annie. She did not state that her Aunt
Jane never allowed her to be seen in public without that dismal
adornment.

"You are a queer girl," said Margaret, and she summed up all her mood
of petty cruelty and vicarious revenge in that one word "queer."

However, little Annie Eustace only smiled as if she had been given a
peculiarly acceptable present. She was so used to being underrated,
that she had become in a measure immune to criticism, and besides
criticism from her adored Mrs. Edes was even a favour. She took
another bungling stitch in the petal of a white floss daisy.

Margaret felt suddenly irritated. All this was too much like raining
fierce blows upon a down pillow.

"Do, for goodness sake, Annie Eustace, stop doing that awful
embroidery if you don't want to drive me crazy," said she.

Then Annie looked at Margaret, and she was obviously distressed and
puzzled. Her grandmother had enjoined it upon her to finish just so
many of these trying daisies before her return and yet, on the other
hand, here was Margaret, her adorable Margaret, forbidding her to
work, and, moreover, Margaret in such an irritable mood, with that
smooth brow of hers frowning, and that sweet voice, which usually had
a lazy trickle like honey, fairly rasping, was as awe-inspiring as
her grandmother. Annie Eustace hesitated for a second. Her
grandmother had commanded. Margaret Edes had commanded. The strongest
impulse of her whole being was obedience, but she loved Margaret, and
she did not love her grandmother. She had never confessed such a
horror to herself, but one does not love another human being whose
main aim toward one is to compress, to stiffen, to make move in a
step with itself. Annie folded up the untidy embroidery. As she did
so, she dropped her needle and also her thimble. The needle lay
glittering beside her chair, the thimble rolled noiselessly over the
trailing fold of her muslin