most frantic passion, she ran.

The first person she happened to meet was her uncle, Mr. Dolman. He
was coming sleepily in from the garden, for the day was getting
intensely hot. He meant to go to his study to begin to write his
sermon for next Sunday. He did not feel at all inclined to write his
sermon, but as it had to be got through somehow, he thought he would
devote an hour, or perhaps an hour and a half, to its composition this
morning. When he saw Diana, however, rushing madly through the hall,
with her eyes shining, her face white, and her whole little body
quivering with excitement, he could not help exclaiming under his
breath at her remarkable beauty.

"What a handsome little spitfire!" he said aloud.

"Spitfire, indeed!" said Diana; "it's you all who is spitfires; it's
not me. I want to say something to you, big man."

"Very well, small girl," answered Mr. Dolman. "I am willing to listen
to you. What is the matter?"

This was really much more diverting than sitting down to his sermon.

"I want you to have that howid old woman upstairs put in pwison. I
want you to get the perlice, and have her hands tied, and have her
took away to pwison. She has done a murder--she has killed my--" But
here little Diana's voice suddenly failed; high as her spirit was, it
could not carry her any further. A sense of absolute loneliness came
over her, and her passion ended in a burst of frantic weeping.

And now all might have been well, for Mr. Dolman was a kind-hearted
man, and the little child, in her black dress, would have appealed to
him, and he would have taken her in his arms and comforted her after a
fashion, and matters might never have been so sore and hard again for
little Diana, if at that moment Mrs. Dolman had not appeared. She was
walking hastily across the hall with her district-visiting hat on.
Mrs. Dolman's district-visiting hat was made in the shape of a very
large mushroom. It was simply adorned with a band of brown ribbon, and
was not either a becoming or fashionable headgear.

Diana, who had a strong sense of the ludicrous, stopped her tears
where her aunt appeared.

"What a poky old thing you is!" she said.

These words enraged Mrs. Dolman.

"William," she remarked, "what are you doing with that child? Why, you
have taken her in your arms; put her down this minute. Diana, you are
a very naughty little girl."

"So is you a very naughty old woman," retorted Diana. "I's not going
away from th