once to my sister," said the little girl, with dignity.

Mrs. Dolman hesitated for a moment.

"Very well, Iris, on this occasion I will take you," she said. "But
please first understand that you four children have got to bend your
wills to mine; and when you are naughty,--although I don't expect you
will ever be naughty, Iris,--I trust you, at least, will be an example
to the others,--but when any of you are naughty you will be most
certainly punished. I have brought you here with the intention of
disciplining you and making you good children."

"Then," said Iris, very slowly, "do you really think, Aunt Jane, that
when mother was alive we were bad children?"

"I have nothing to say on that point," answered Mrs. Dolman. She led
Iris across the cool hall, and, taking a key out of her pocket, opened
the door of the punishment chamber. She threw it wide open, and there,
in the center of the matting, lay Diana, curled up like a little dog,
very sound asleep.

"Much she cares," said Mrs. Dolman.

"Oh, Aunt Jane!" said Iris, tears springing to her eyes, "how could
you be cruel to her, and she is not long without mother, you know--how
could you be cruel to her, Aunt Jane?"

"You are not to dare to speak to me in that tone, Iris," said Aunt
Jane.

But at that moment the noise, or perhaps it was the draught of fresh
air, caused Diana to stir in her sleep. She raised her head and looked
around her. The first person her eyes met was Iris.

"So you has come at last," she said. "I don't think much of you for a
mother. You made a lot of pwomises, and that's all you care. Has that
ugly old woman been sent to pwison? There's my darlin' pets gone and
got deaded, and she deaded 'em. Has she been put in pwison for murder?
Oh, there you is, too, old Aunt Jane! Well, I is not going to obey
you, so there! Now you know the twuf. I is Diana, the gweat Diana. I
isn't going to obey nobody!"

"Iris," said Mrs. Dolman, "will you speak to this extremely naughty
little girl? If she will not repent and beg my pardon she shall have
no dinner. I will send her in some bread and water; and here she shall
stay until her naughty little spirit is broken."

Mrs. Dolman left the room as she spoke, and Iris found herself alone
with her sister.

"You isn't much of a mother," repeated Diana. She went over to the
window, and stood with her back to Iris. Her little bosom was heaving
up and down; she felt very forlorn, but still she hugged her miser