punish 'er. Ann's a reg'lar bat, if not a' owl."

"Pull her out!" Dolly cried. "I've got to talk to her, and recess is
almost over."

"Come out, young lady," Webb laid hold of the girl's wrist and drew
the reluctant creature to her feet, half pushing, half leading her to
her sister.

"I'm glad you happened in, Uncle John," Dolly said. "I want you to
take a look at that face. How she got the money I don't know, but she
bought a dozen sticks of licorice at the store as she passed this
morning and brought them to school in her pocket. She's been gorging
herself with it all day. You can see it all over her face, under her
chin, behind her neck, and even in her ears. Look here at her new
geography." Dolly, in high disgust, exhibited several brown smudges on
an otherwise clean page.

Webb took the book with all the gravity of a most righteous, if highly
amused judge. "Looks like ham gravy, don't it?" he said. "An' as I
understand it, the book has to be handed on to somebody else when she
gits through with it. What a pity!"

"I know you are ashamed of her, Uncle John, for I am," Dolly
continued. "You see, she's my own sister."

"And my own sister's child," Webb deplored. "Of course, she ain't
_quite_ as close to me as she is to you, but she's nigh enough to
make me feel plumb ashamed. I've always tuck pride in both you gals;
but lawsy me, if Ann is goin' to gaum 'erself from head to foot like a