"You--you bad, troublesome, wicked boy! I could shake the very life out
of you!" she hissed through her shut teeth, suiting the action to the
word. "A pretty mess you've made of it, you and Walter. Your birthday
coming next week too; there'll be no presents from Ion for you, you may
rest assured. I hoped Mr. Travilla would send you each a handsome suit,
as he did last year; but of course you'll get nothing now."

"Well, I don't care," muttered Dick, "it's your fault for making the
ugly things." And freeing himself by a sudden jerk, he darted from the
room.

Children and servants had trooped after Mr. Dinsmore to witness the
conflagration, and Dick's sudden exit left the ladies sole occupants of
the apartment.

"I declare it's too bad! too provoking for endurance!" exclaimed Enna,
bursting into a flood of angry tears.

"What's the use of taking it so hard?" returned her sister.

"You're a perfect iceberg," retorted Enna.

"That accounts for my not crying over our misfortune, I presume; my
tears being all frozen up," returned Mrs. Conly with an exasperating
smile. "Well there is comfort in all things: we may now congratulate
ourselves that Foster and Boyd did not wait for these but supplied
themselves elsewhere."

There was a difference of two years in the ages of Dick Percival and