," she
continued, "that it is perfectly horrid of Aunt Sophia to say that we are
not to know you."

"It's snobbish and mean and unlady-like," retorted Nancy; "but her saying
it doesn't make it a fact, for you do know me, and you will always have
to know me. And if she thinks, old spiteful! that I'm going to put up
with her nasty, low, mean, proud ways, she's fine and mistaken. I'm not,
and that's flat. So there, old spitfire! I shouldn't mind telling her so
to her face."

"But, on the whole, she has been kind to us," said Pauline, who had some
sense of justice in her composition, angry as she felt at the moment.

"Has she?" said Nancy. "Then let me tell you she has not a very nice way
of showing it. Now, Paulie, no more beating about the bush. What's up?
Your eyes are red; you have a great smear of ink on your forehead; and
your hands--my word! for so grand a young lady your hands aren't up to
much, my dear."

"I have got into trouble," said Pauline. "I didn't do my lessons properly
yesterday; I couldn't--I had a headache, and everything went wrong. So
this morning I could not say any of them when Aunt Sophia called me up,
and she put me into Punishment Land. You know, don't you, that I am soon
to have a birthday?"

"Oh, don't I?" interrupted Nancy. "Didn't a little bird whisper it to me,
and didn't that same little bird tell me exactly what somebody would like
somebody else to give her? And didn't that somebody else put her hand
into her pocket and send---- Oh, we won't say any more, but she did send
for something for somebody's birthday. Oh, yes, I know. You needn't tell
me about that birthday, Pauline Dale."

"You are good," said Pauline, completely touched. She wondered what
possible thing Nancy could have purchased for her. She had a wild desire
to know what it was. She determined then and there, in her foolish little
heart, that nothing would induce her to quarrel with Nancy.

"It is something that you like, and something that will spite her," said
the audacious Nancy. "I thought it all out, and I made up my mind to kill
two birds with one stone. Now to go on with the pretty little story. We
didn't please aunty, and we got into trouble. Proceed, Paulie pet."

"I didn't learn my lessons. I was cross, as I said, and headachy, and
Aunt Sophia said I was to be made an example of, and so she sent me to
Punishment Land for twenty-four hours."

"Oh, my dear! It sounds awful. What is it?"

"Why, none of my sis