he other the
slender kicking legs, expressing passionate rebellion in every spasmodic
motion. The clutching hands caught the tip of a palm in passing, and the
china pot went rolling down the stairs and crashed to bits, startling
the two immense great Dane puppies which had been the occasion of the
whole trouble.

The two figures, swaying and struggling, went on up; for though the man
was strong, a writhing child of ten is no light burden; and the stairs,
for all their grandeur, were steep, and the carpet so thick that the
foot sank into it as into new-fallen snow. Just as they passed out of
sight Miss Bennett saw the hands of the child, now clenched fists, begin
to beat on the man's arms, and she heard the clear, defiant young voice
repeating, "I will keep them! I will!" The man's "You won't" was not
spoken, but was none the less understood. Miss Bennett knew that when
the heads of the stairs was reached the blows would be returned with
interest.

Usually in the long struggle between these two indomitable wills Miss
Bennett had been on Joe Thorne's side, coarse, violent man though he
was, for she was old-fashioned and believed that children ought to obey.
But this night he had alienated her sympathy by being rude to her--for
the first and last time. He had come home after one of his long absences
to the hideous house in Fifth Avenue in which he took so much pride, and
had found these two new pets of Lydia's careening about the hall like
young calves. He had turned on Miss Bennett.

"What the hell do you let her do such things for?" he had demanded, and
Miss Bennett had answered with unusual spirit.

"Because she's so badly brought up, Mr. Thorne, that no one can do
anything with her."

Lydia had stood by defiantly, glancing from one to the other, with a
hand in the collar of each of her dogs, her face pale, her jaw set, her
head not much above the sleek battleship-gray heads of the great Danes,
her small body pulled first one way and then the other by their gambols.
All the time she was saying over and over, "I will keep them! I will! I
will!"

She hadn't kept them; she had lost that particular skirmish in the long
war. Not till some years later did she begin to win; but whether she
lost or won, Miss Bennett was always conscious of a rush of pity for the
slim, black-eyed little girl thrusting her iron will so fearlessly
against that of the man from whom she had inherited it.

And for the Lydia of to-day, now en