o--wiser and kinder."

"Kindness has nothin' to do with it."

"Yes, it has," persisted Lucy softly. "Unless we become more kind, how is
the world ever to become better?"

"Pish!" ejaculated Ellen. "Now see here. You ain't comin' into my house to
preach to me. I'm older'n you, an' I know without bein' told what I want
to do. So long's you stay under this roof you'll behave like a
Webster--that's all I've got to say. If you ain't a-goin' to be a Webster
an' prefer to disgrace your kin, the sooner you get out the better."

"Very well. I can go."

There was no bravado in the assertion. Had there been, Ellen would not
have felt so much alarmed. It was the fearless sincerity of the remark
that frightened her. She had not intended to force a crisis. She had
calculated that her bullying tone would cow rather than antagonize her
niece. The last result on which she had reckoned was defiance. Instantly
her crafty mind recognized that she must conciliate unless she would lose
this valuable helper whose toil could be secured without expense.

"Of course I don't mean--I wouldn't want you should go away," she hastened
to declare. "I'm just anxious for you to do--well--what's right," she
concluded lamely.

Lucy saw her advantage.

"Now, Aunt Ellen, we may as well settle this right now," she asserted. "I
am quite willing to go back to Arizona any time you say the word. I have
no desire to remain where I am not wanted. But so long as I do stay here,
I must be the one to decide what it is right for me to do. Remember, I am
not a child. I have a conscience as well as you, and I am old enough to
use it."

Ellen did not speak. She realized that Greek had met Greek and in the
combat of wills she was vanquished. Nevertheless, she was not generous
enough to own defeat.

"S'pose we don't talk about it any more," she replied diplomatically.

She was retreating toward the door, still smarting under the knowledge of
having been vanquished, when her eye fell upon the box of eggs, which, in
her excitement, she had forgotten was in her hand. A malicious gleam
lighted her face. A second afterward there was a violent crash in the
kitchen.

"The eggs!" Lucy heard her cry. "I've dropped 'em."

The eggs had indeed been dropped,--dropped with such a force that even the
cooperation of all the king's horses and all the king's men would have
been useless.

When Lucy reached her side Ellen was bending over the wreck on the floor,
a sly smile o