stopped for
just one taste. I lifted off the dragon's ugly head and was reaching
my hand down inside for one of those delicious sweetmeats, when in
walked Miss Patricia. My! I was scared! I hadn't expected her back so
soon.

I dropped the dragon's old blue head on the floor and was out of the
window like a shot. There was a cedar-tree reaching up past the
window, and I ran out on one of the limbs and hid myself among its
thick branches. I could see her but she couldn't see me. She walked
all around the room, and looked at the wash-stand and the bureau and
at Dick's tail-feathers scattered among the window-plants and then at
the blue dragon's head, smashed all to bits on the floor. Then she
picked up the locket, lying face downwards on the rug, and began
searching for the other things that had been in the jewel-case. I
suppose it was the carnelian ring and the gold dollar with the hole in
it that she missed. I opened my hand, remembering that I had had them
when I went to hush up that noisy mocking-bird. I must have dropped
them when I jumped from the window into the cedar-tree. While I was
hanging over the limb, peering down to see if I could catch a glimpse
of them on the ground below, the housemaid, Nora, came into the room
in answer to Miss Patricia's ring. A few minutes after, Doctor
Tremont followed.

Nora and the doctor walked around and around the room, looking at
everything, as Miss Patricia had done, and hunting for the things that
were missing, but Miss Patricia sat down in a high-backed chair
against the wall, and cried.

"I cannot stand it any longer," she sobbed. Her old face was
quivering, there was a bright red spot on each cheek, and her
side-curls were trembling with excitement. "I have put up with that
little beast until I can endure it no longer. Patience has ceased to
be a virtue. Either it must go, or I shall. Look at Dick! His heart is
beating itself almost out of his poor little body, he is so
frightened. And there's that china dragon, that has been a family
heirloom for generations,--all broken! And my precious little
keepsakes, that I have cherished since childhood, all scattered or
lost! Oh, Tom, you do not know how cruelly it hurts me!"

I felt sorry, then. I wanted to cry out, as Stuart had done when he
shot his great-great-grandfather's portrait, "Oh, Aunt Patricia, I'm
_so_ sorry! It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it, truly I didn't
mean to!" But she couldn't understand monkey l