her face, therefore, when
Miss Tredgold told her that they were to pack their things that day, and
that she, Verena, and herself would start for Easterhaze at an early hour
on the following morning, was almost beyond words.

"Why is you giving Pauline this great big treat?" asked Penelope.

"Little girls should be seen and not heard," was Miss Tredgold's remark.

"But this little girl wants to be heard," replied the incorrigible child.
"'Cos she isn't very strong, and 'cos her face is palefied."

"There is no such word as palefied, Penelope."

"I made it. It suits me," said Penelope.

"Pauline's cheeks are rather too pale," answered Miss Tredgold.

She did not reprove Penelope, for in spite of herself she sometimes found
a smile coming to her face at the child's extraordinary remarks.

Presently Penelope slipped away. She went thoughtfully across the lawn.
Her head was hanging, and her whole stout little figure testified to the
fact that she was meditating.

"Off to the sea!" she muttered softly to herself. "Off to the big briny
waves, to the wadings, to the sand castles, to the shrimps, to the
hurdy-gurdies, and all 'cos she's palefied. I wish I could be paled."

She ran into the house, rushed through the almost deserted nursery, and
startled nurse out of her seven senses with a wild whoop.

"Nursey, how can I be paled down?"

"Nonsense, child! Don't talk rubbish."

"Am I pale, nursey, or am I a rosy sort of little girl?"

"You are a sunburnt, healthy-looking little child, with no beauty to fash
about," was nurse's blunt response.

"Am I healthy-looking?"

"Of course you are, Miss Pen. Be thankful to the Almighty for it, and
don't worry me."

Pen stuck out her tongue, made a hideous face at nurse, and darted from
the room. She stood in the passage for a minute or two reflecting, then
she slipped round and went in the direction of Pauline's bedroom.

The bandbox chock-full of those vulgar presents had been pushed into the
back part of a dark cupboard which stood in the little girl's room.
Penelope knew all about that. She opened the cupboard, disappeared into
its shadows, and then returned with an orange-colored tidy and a
chocolate-red pin-cushion. Having made a bag of the front of her frock,
she slipped the pin-cushion and tidy into it, and ran off to the kitchen.
Aunt Sophia visited the kitchen each morning, but Pen knew that the hour
of her daily visit had not yet arrived. Betty was there, surrep