titiously
reading a copy of the _Faithful Friend_. She started when Pen darted into
her domain.

"Now what is it, Miss Penelope? For goodness' sake, miss, get out of
this. Your aunt would be flabbergasted to see you here."

For response Pen planted down in front of Betty the orange-colored tidy
and the chocolate-red pin-cushion.

"Here's some things," she said. "Here's two nice things for a nice body.
What will that nice body give for these nice things?"

"My word!" said Betty, "they're natty."

She took up the pin-cushion and examined it all over. She then laid it
down again. She next took up the tidy, turned it from side to side, and
placed it, with a sigh of distinct desire, beside the pin-cushion.

"Them's my taste," she said. "I like those sort of fixed colors. I can't
abide the wishy-washy tastes of the present day."

"They's quite beautiful, ain't they?" said Pen. "I'll give them to you if
you will----"

"You will give them to me?" said Betty. "But where did you get them
from?"

"That don't matter a bit. Don't you ask any questions and you will hear
no lies. I will give them to you, and nobody and nothing shall ever take
them from you again, if you do something for me."

"What's that, Miss Pen?"

"Will you, Betty--will you? And will you be awful quick about it."

"I should like to have them," said Betty. "There's a friend of mine going
to commit marriage, and that tidy would suit her down to the ground.
She'd like it beyond anything. But, all the same, I don't hold with young
ladies forcing their way into my kitchen; it's not haristocratic."

"Never mind that ugly word. Will you do what I want?"

"What is it, Miss Pen?"

"Palefy me. Make me sort of refined. Take the color out of me. Bleach
me--that's it. I want to go to the seaside. Pale people go; rosy people
don't. I want to be awful pale by to-night. How can it be done? It's more
genteel to be pale."

"It is that," said Betty, looking at the rosy Penelope with critical
eyes. "I have often fretted over my own color; it's mostly fixed in the
nose, too. But I don't know any way to get rid of it."

"Don't you?" said Penelope.

Quick as thought she snatched up the pin-cushion and tidy.

"You don't have these," she said. "Your friend what's going to be married
won't have this tidy. If you can't take fixed colors out of me, you don't
have fixed colors for your bedroom, so there!"

"You are awful quick and smart, miss, and I have heard tell th