a gown?" Beth asked in surprise.

Aunt Victoria smiled. Then she took down an old black gown that was
hanging behind the door, and handed it to Beth with a pair of sharp
scissors.

"I'll undo the body part," Beth said, "and that will save your eyes. I
don't think this gown owes you much."

"I do not understand that expression, Beth," said Aunt Victoria.

"Don't you," said Beth, working away with the scissors cheerfully.
"Harriet always says that, when she's got all the good there is to be
got out of anything--the dusters, you know, or the dishcloth. I once
did a piece of unpicking like this for mamma, and she didn't explain
properly, or something--at all events, I took out a great deal too
much, so she----"

"Don't call your mamma 'she.' 'She' is the cat."

"Mamma, then. Mamma beat me."

"Don't say she beat you."

"I said mamma."

"Well, don't talk about your mamma beating you. That is not a nice
thing to talk about."

"It's not a nice thing to do either," said Beth judicially. "And I
never used to talk about it; didn't like to, you know. But now
she--mamma--doesn't beat me any more--at least only sometimes when she
forgets."

"Ah, then, you have been a better girl."

"No, not better--bigger. You see if I struck her back again she
wouldn't like it."

"Beth! Beth! strike your mother!"

"That was the danger," said Beth, in her slow, distinct, imperturbable
way. "One day she made me so angry I very nearly struck her, and I
told her so. That made her look queer, I can tell you. And she's never
struck me since--except in a half-hearted sort of way, or when she
forgot, and that didn't count, of course. But I think I know now how
it was she used to beat me. I did just the same thing myself one day.
I beat Sammy----"

"Who is Sammy?" said Aunt Victoria, looking over her spectacles.

"Sammy Lee, you know."

Aunt Victoria recollected, and felt she should improve the occasion,
but was at a loss for a moment what to say. She was anxious above
everything that Beth should talk to her freely, for how could she help
the child if she did not know all she had in her mind? It is upon the
things they are never allowed to mention that children brood
unwholesomely.

"I thought that you were not allowed to know Sammy Lee," she finally
observed.

"No more I was," Beth answered casually.

"Yet you knew him all the same?" Aunt Victoria ventured reproachfully.

"Aunt Victoria," said Beth, "did the Lord die for Sammy