it that she missed. I opened my hand, remembering that I had had them
when I went to hush up that noisy mocking-bird. I must have dropped
them when I jumped from the window into the cedar-tree. While I was
hanging over the limb, peering down to see if I could catch a glimpse
of them on the ground below, the housemaid, Nora, came into the room
in answer to Miss Patricia's ring. A few minutes after, Doctor
Tremont followed.

Nora and the doctor walked around and around the room, looking at
everything, as Miss Patricia had done, and hunting for the things that
were missing, but Miss Patricia sat down in a high-backed chair
against the wall, and cried.

"I cannot stand it any longer," she sobbed. Her old face was
quivering, there was a bright red spot on each cheek, and her
side-curls were trembling with excitement. "I have put up with that
little beast until I can endure it no longer. Patience has ceased to
be a virtue. Either it must go, or I shall. Look at Dick! His heart is
beating itself almost out of his poor little body, he is so
frightened. And there's that china dragon, that has been a family
heirloom for generations,--all broken! And my precious little
keepsakes, that I have cherished since childhood, all scattered or
lost! Oh, Tom, you do not know how cruelly it hurts me!"

I felt sorry, then. I wanted to cry out, as Stuart had done when he
shot his great-great-grandfather's portrait, "Oh, Aunt Patricia, I'm
_so_ sorry! It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it, truly I didn't
mean to!" But she couldn't understand monkey language, and man's
speech has been denied us, so I only hugged the limb closer and
watched in silence.