ive me a nice one, too, aren't
you?"

Mona was trembling with mortification and anger. "No, I am not," she
said, "and if you don't go out of here in a minute I'll--I'll----"

"Oh, no--you won't, dear. You couldn't if you wanted to--but you don't
really want to, I know. Now poke up the fire and get me some tea.
I hope you have something nice to eat."

Mona stood by the dressers, her thoughts flying wildly through her brain.
What could she do? Millie was taller, older, and stronger than herself,
so she could not seize her, and put her out by force. Mona knew, too,
that she would not listen to pleading or to coaxing.

"Oh, if only someone would come!" She made a move towards the door, but
Millie was too quick for her, and got between her and it.

"Millie, you've got to go away. You'll get me into an awful row if you
are found here, and--and I can't think how you can push yourself in where
you ain't wanted."

"Oh, fie! Little girls shouldn't be rude--it shows they haven't been
properly brought up."

Mona did not answer. She was trying to think what she could do. If she
went out of the house would Millie follow?

Millie picked up a newspaper, and pretended to read it, but over the top
of it she was watching Mona all the time. She loved teasing, and she
thought she had power to make younger girls do just as she wished.
But Mona stood leaning against the dressers, showing no sign of giving in.

Millie grew impatient. "Wake up, can't you!" she cried, and, picking up a
cushion from an armchair beside her, she threw it across the room at Mona.
"I want my tea!"

The cushion flew past Mona without touching her, but it fell full crash
against the china on the dressers behind her. Mona screamed, and tried to
catch what she could of the falling things. Cups, plate, jugs came
rolling down on the top of those below. What could one pair of small
hands do to save them!

The set, a tea-set, and her grandmother's most treasured possession, had
been kept for a hundred years without a chip or a crack. It had been her
grandmother's and her great-grandmother's before that.

Mona, white to the lips, and trembling, stood like an image of despair.
Her hands were cut, but she did not notice that. Millie was pale, too,
and really frightened, though she tried to brazen it out. "Now there'll
be a fine old row, and you will be in it, Mona Carne. It was all your
fault, you know."

But Mona felt no fear for herself yet.