tle more honey from you for Mrs.
Strathspey's breakfast. You know, at a great time such as this, we
should help one another."

"To be sure we should," added Betty.

Susan, though she was generous, was not weak; she was willing to give
to those she loved, but would not let anything be taken from her or
coaxed out of her by those whom she could not respect. She answered
that she was sorry she had no more honey to spare.

Barbara grew angry. "I'll tell you what, Susan Price," she said, "the
honey I will have, so you may as well give it to me by fair means. Yes
or no? Speak! Will you give it to me or not? Will you give me that
piece of the honeycomb that lies there?"

"That bit of honeycomb is for my mother's breakfast," said Susan; "I
cannot give it you."

"Can't you?" said Bab, "then see if I don't take it."

She stretched across Susan and grasped, but she did not reach far
enough. She made a second dart at the honeycomb and, in her effort to
get it, she overset the beehive. The bees swarmed about her. Her maid
Betty screamed and ran away. Susan, who was sheltered by a
laburnum-tree, called to Barbara, upon whom the black clusters of bees
were now settling, and begged her to stand still and not to beat them
away, "If you stand quietly you won't be stung, perhaps."

But instead of standing quietly, Bab flung about her arms, and stamped
and roared, and the bees stung her terribly. Her arms and her face
swelled in a frightful manner. She was helped home by poor Susan and
Betty. The maid, now that the mischief was done, thought only of how
she could excuse herself to her master.

"Indeed, Miss Barbara," said she, "it was quite wrong of you to go and
get yourself into such a scrape. I shall be turned away for it, you'll
see."

"I don't care whether you are turned away or not," said Barbara; "I
never felt such pain in my life. Can't you do something for me? I
don't mind the pain either so much as being such a fright. Pray, how
am I to be fit to appear at breakfast with Mrs. Strathspey; and I
suppose I can't go to the ball either to-morrow, after all."

"No, that you can't expect to do, indeed," said Betty. "You need not
think of balls, for those lumps and swellings won't go off your face
this week. That's not what I mind; I'm thinking of what your papa will
say to me when he sees you, miss."

Susan, seeing she could be of no further use, was about to leave the
house, when at the door she met Mr. Case coming in. No