"Oh, mommy," cried Janice, springing forward and laying a
detaining hand on her mother's arm in an imploring manner,
"punish me as much as you please,--I know 't was very,
very wicked,--but don't take the book away! He and
Amaryllis were just--"

"Not another sight shalt thou have of it, miss. My daughter
reading novels, indeed!" and Mrs. Meredith departed, holding
the evil book gingerly between her fingers, much as one might
carry something that was liable to soil one's hands.

The two girls looked at each other, Tabitha with a woebegone
expression, and Janice with an odd one, which might
mean many things. The flushed cheeks were perhaps due to
guilt, but the tightly clinched little fists were certainly due to
anger, and, noting these two only, one would have safely
affirmed that Janice Meredith, meekly as she had taken her
mother's scolding, had a quick and hot temper. But the eyes
were fairly starry with some emotion, certainly not anger, and
though the lips were pressed tightly together, the feeling that
had set them so rigidly was but a passing one, for suddenly the
corners twitched, the straight lines bent into curves, and flinging
herself upon the tall four-poster bedstead, Miss Meredith
laughed as only fifteen can laugh.

"Oh, Tibbie, Tibbie," she presently managed to articulate,
"if you look like that I shall die," and as the god of Momus
once more seized her, she dragged the quilt into a rumpled
pile, and buried her face in it, as if indeed attempting to suffocate