ain unless I had something to ask
for. When I came to think of it, I found that what I wanted was that
Maud Mary should let me manage my own toys and direct the game, and I
resolved to ask her myself.

"Look here, darling," said I, "when I come and play with you, I always
play dolls as you like, because the dolls' house is yours; I wish you
would play my game to-day, as the Dutch fair is mine."

Maud Mary flounced to her feet, and bridled with her wavy head, and
said she was sure she did not want to play if I didn't like her way of
playing; and as to my Dutch fair, her papa could buy her one any day
for her very own.

I was nettled, for Maud Mary was a little apt to flourish Mr.
Ibbetson's money in my face; but if her father was rich, my godmother
was a lady of rank, and I said that "my godmother, Lady Elizabeth,
said it was very vulgar to flounce and toss one's head if one was put
out."

Maud Mary crimsoned, and, exclaiming that she did not care what Lady
Elizabeth or Lady Anybody Else said, she whisked over three shops with
the ends of her sash, and kicked the wax off Josephine Esmeralda's
nose with the heel of her Balmoral boot.

I don't like confessing it, but I did push Maud Mary, and Maud Mary
slapped me.

And when we both looked up, my godmother was standing before us, with
her gold spectacles on her nose.

* * * * *

Lady Elizabeth was very kind, and even then I knew that she was very
right.

When she said, "I have asked your friend for a week, and for that
week, my dear, she is your guest, and you must try to please, and
_make the best of it_," I not only did not dispute it; I felt a spirit
of self-suppression and hospitable pride awake within me to do as she
had said.

I think the hardest part of it was that, whatever I did and whatever I
gave up, Maud Mary recognized no effort on my part. What she got she
took as her due, and what she did not get she grumbled about.

I sometimes think that it was partly because, in all that long week,
she never ceased grumbling, that I did; I hope for life.

Only once I said, "O godmamma! how glad I shall be when I am alone
with Joseph again!" And with sudden remorse, I added, "But I beg your
pardon, that's grumbling; and you _have_ been so kind!"

Lady Elizabeth took off her eye-glasses, and held out her hands for
mine.

"Is it grumbling, little woman?" she said. "Well, I'm not sure."

"_I'm_ not sure," I said, smiling; "fo