things! I have been jealous of Rosalind, because when she arrived you
and your sister forgot that I was alone and far-away from everyone
belonging to me, and were so much engrossed with her that you left me
alone to amuse myself as best I might. You were pleased enough to have
me when no one else was there, but you left me the moment someone
appeared who was richer and grander than I. I wouldn't have treated
_you_ like that, if our positions had been reversed. If I dislike
Rosalind, it is your fault as much as hers; more than hers, for it was
you who made me dread her coming!"

Peggy stopped, trembling and breathless. There was a moment's silence
in the room, and then Esther spoke in a slow, meditative fashion.

"It is quite true!" she said. "We _have_ left you alone, Peggy; but it
is not quite so bad as you think. Really and truly we like you far the
best, but--but Rosalind is such a change to us! Everything about her is
so beautiful and so different, that she has always seemed the great
excitement of our lives. I don't know that I'm exactly fond of her, but
I want to see her, and talk to her, and hear her speak, and she is only
here for a short time in the year. It was because we looked upon you as
really one of ourselves that we seemed to neglect you; but it was wrong,
all the same. As for your spoiling her dress on purpose, it's
ridiculous to think of it. How could you say such a thing, Mellicent,
when Peggy was trying to help you, too? How _could_ you be so mean and
horrid?"

"Oh, well, I'm sure I wish I were dead!" wailed Mellicent promptly.
"Nothing but fusses and bothers, and just when I thought I was going to
be so happy! If I'd had white shoes, this would never have happened.
Always the same thing! When you look forward to a treat, everything is
as piggy and nasty as it can be! Wish I'd never come! Wish I'd stayed
at home, and let the horrid old party go to Jericho! Rosalind's crying,
Peggy's cross, you are preaching! This is a nice way to enjoy yourself,
I must say!"

Nothing is more hopeless than to reason with a placid person who has
lapsed into a fit of ill-temper. The two elder girls realised this, and
remained perfectly silent while Mellicent continued to wish for death,
to lament the general misery of life, and the bad fortune which attended
the wearers of black slippers. So incessant was the stream of her
repinings, that it seemed as if it might have gone on for ever, had not
a