hardly remember their kind big brother." He addressed the small girl
whose round eyes, moving from speaker to speaker since Mary had
entered, were now upon him. "Do you, Angela?" he asked.

"I--hate--you," Angela told him, in the slow utterance of one giving
completest effect to a carefully weighed sentiment.

With equal impressiveness, David, seated beside her, lent his
authority to the statement. "I--hate--you--too," he joined.

Mr. Bob Chater laughed a little stupidly.

Mary cried: "Oh, Angela! Oh, David! How can you speak like that!"

"He is perfectly abom'able," Angela said, unmoved. "He made Davie cry.
He trod on Davie's beetle."

The cracked corpse of a mechanical beetle, joy of David's heart, was
produced in evidence; its distressed owner reddening ominously at this
renewed recollection of the calamity.

Mary took the sad pieces tenderly. "Silly children! He never meant to
break it. Oh, such silly children!"

Angela protested, "He did! He did! He put his foot over it while it
was running, and stopped it. He told David to get it away if he could,
and David bit his leg, and he said 'Damn you!' and crushed it crack."

Mary whipped a glance at the murderer. She ignored the evidence. "To-
morrow!" said she. "Why, what fun! To-morrow we'll play hospital like