sharply.

"Anna naturally ran to sneak," said Betty to herself, "and I don't
believe she really thought there was a fire at all, and I'll tell her so
when I get her by herself." Aloud she said, "I wonder what made her get
out of bed and look under our door. She couldn't have smelt fire, for
of course there wasn't any to smell."

"Be quiet, Elizabeth.--Remember, Katherine," her aunt went on, turning
to her, "that if ever I hear of or see any behaviour of this kind again,
I shall have you to sleep in my room, and put Anna in here with
Elizabeth." Which was a threat so full of horror to both the girls that
they subsided speechless.

"I think," whispered Betty, as soon as their aunt's footsteps had ceased
to sound--"no, I don't think, I know that Anna is the _very meanest_
sneak I ever met."

"I hope I shall never know a meaner," groaned Kitty; "but I--I won't be
beaten by her. I won't! I won't!"

"And I'll beat her too," snapped Betty.

"I am ashamed that she is a relation," said Kitty in hot disgust.

"She isn't a real one," said Betty scornfully, "and for the future I
shan't count her one at all. We won't own such a mean thing in the
family."

"I wonder why she is so horrid," sighed Kitty, who was more distressed
by these things than was Betty. "We never did her any harm.
Perhaps she can't help it. It must be awful to be mean, and a sneak,
and to feel you can't help it."

"Why doesn't Aunt Pike teach her better? She is always telling us what
to do, and that it is good for us to try and be different, and--and all
that sort of thing."

"But Aunt Pike wouldn't believe that Anna is mean; she thinks she is
perfection," said Kitty.

"Oh, well, I s'pose a jewel's a duck in a toad's eye," misquoted Betty
complacently; "at least, that is what Fanny said, and I think she is
right. Fanny often is."

When they met the next day Betty gave her cousin another shock, perhaps
more severe than the one she had had during the night, for frankness
always shocked Anna Pike.

"I do think, Anna," she said gravely, "it is a pity you let yourself do
such mean things. Of course you didn't really think our room was on
fire last night, and every one but Aunt Pike knows you were only
sneaking. If you go on like that, you won't be able to stop yourself
when you want to, and nobody will ever like you."

Anna's little restless eyes grew hard and unpleasant-looking. "I have
more friends than you have, or Kitty either," she