have my place turned into a bear-garden."

"Emily shouldn't have put down dirty things," said Kitty, loyal to her
sister. "She is always doing it, and she ought to know better."
Her sympathies were all with Betty. She may have been "tackless," as
Fanny called it, but however kindly Emily had been told of her
carelessness she would have been certain to fly into a rage; and they
had put up with so much from her without complaining, that no one could
accuse them of being fidgety or captious.

As a matter of fact, Emily, who needed a very firm mistress of whom she
would stand in awe, should have been sent away long before. Kitty could
not manage her at all, and as she thought of all they had endured daily
at Emily's hands, she felt almost thankful that soon the management of
her would fall to Aunt Pike's lot.

"Did you say, Miss Kitty, that the master had asked Mrs. Pike to come
here to live altogether, to look after us?"

Kitty nodded despairingly. After all, the managing of Emily seemed but
a very trifling advantage to weigh against the Pike invasion and all
that would follow on it. "O Fanny," she sighed brokenly, "if only--if
only mother were alive! Nothing has gone right since, nor ever will
again; and I feel it is almost all my fault that Aunt Pike has got to
come, and--and--"

"Now don't take on like that, Miss Kitty," said Fanny, sniffing audibly,
and not entirely able to throw off a sense of her own guilt in the
matter. "'Tisn't nothing to do with you, I'm sure. If things _'as_ to
be, they _'as_ to be, and we'll manage some'ow. I'm going to set about