ome that she
collapsed on to her chair again, and had to clench her hands tightly and
wink hard to disperse the mist which clouded her eyes and threatened to
turn to rain.

But a moment later the entrance of Aunt Pike helped her to recover
herself--Aunt Pike, with a white face and an expression on it which said
plainly that her mind was made up and nothing would unmake it.
Betty and Tony stepped forward to meet her.

"How do you do, Elizabeth?--How do you do, Anthony? I should have gone
to your bedrooms to see you, thinking naturally that you two, at least,
would be in bed, but I was told you were still racing the country.
Anna goes to bed at seven-thirty, and she is a year older than you,"
looking at Betty very severely.

"Is Anna here too?" asked Kitty, saying anything that came into her head
by way of making a diversion.

"No, she is not. She will join me later. We were just about to move to
another hydropathic establishment when your poor father's letter reached
me, and I felt that, no matter at what sacrifice on my part, it was my
duty to throw up all my own plans and come here at once."

"Then the postman must have missed my letter," said Betty indignantly.
"What a pity! for it would have told you we didn't want--I mean, it
would have saved you the trouble--"

"It was your letter, Elizabeth, which decided me to come," said Mrs.
Pike, turning her attention to poor Betty. "It reached me by the same
post as your poor father's, and when I read it I felt that I must come
at once--that my place was indeed here. So I confided Anna to the care
of friends, and came, though at the greatest possible inconvenience, by
the next train. And what," looking round severely at them all, "did I
find on my arrival? No one in the house to greet me! My nephews and
nieces out roaming the country alone, no one knew where! One maid out
without leave, and the other--well, you might almost say she was out
too, for her head protruded so far from her bedroom window that I could
see it almost from the bottom of the street."

"Emily _will_ hang out of window," sighed Kitty.

"And when I reprimanded her she was most impertinent. Is she always so
when she is reprimanded, Katherine?"

"We--we don't reprimand her," admitted Kitty. "I am afraid she would be
if we did," she added honestly.

At that moment Dan burst into the room carrying a bottle. "If you put
some of this on the bruises," he said, offering it to his aunt, "it'l