that isn't _elegant_, mother says. What right had she to set up and say
she'd be Mrs. Piper? So forward!"

After all, this was the grievous part of the whole to Flossy,--that she
had to take an inferior part in the play.

"But I'm _sorry_ she's gone," said Susy, uneasily. "I don't like to have
her go and tell that I wasn't polite."

"You _was_ polite," chimed in little Prudy, from the sofa; "a great deal
politer'n she was! I wouldn't care, if I would be you, Susy. I don't
wish Annie was dead, but I wish she was a duck a-sailin' on the water!"

The children went back to the game they had been playing before Annie
came; but the interest was quite gone. Their quick-tempered little
guest had been a "_kill-joy_" in spite of her name.

But the afternoon was not over yet. What happened next, I will tell you
in another chapter.




CHAPTER IX.

MORAL COURAGE.


Annie Lovejoy had not been gone fifteen minutes, when there was a sharp
ringing of Mrs. Parlin's doorbell, and a little boy gave Norah the red