abuse Blair behind his back. It isn't fair." Her uncle was
perfectly dumfounded; then he went into harsh reproof. Elizabeth
grew whiter and whiter and the dimple in her cheek lengthened
into a long, hairline. "I wish I didn't live with you. I wish my
mother were alive. _She_ would be good to me!"

"Your mother?" said Robert Ferguson; his involuntary grunt of
cynical amusement touched the child like a whip. Her fury was
appalling. She screamed at him that she hated him! She loved her
mother! She was going to marry Blair the minute she was grown up!
Then she whirled out of the room, almost knocking over poor old
Miss White, whose "post" had been anxiously near the key-hole.

Up-stairs, her rage scared her governess nearly to death: "My
lamb! You'll get overheated, and take cold. When I was a young
lady, it was thought unrefined to speak so--emphatically. And
your dear uncle didn't mean to be severe; he--"

'"Dear uncle'?" said Elizabeth, "dear devil! He hurt my feelings.
He made fun of my mother!" As she spoke, she leaped at a
photograph of Robert Ferguson which stood on her bureau, and,
doubling her hand, struck the thin glass with all her force. It
splintered, and the blood spurted from her cut knuckles on to her
uncle's face.

Miss White began to cry. "Oh, my dear, my dear, try to control
yourself, or you'll do something dreadful some day!" Cherry-pie's
efforts to check Elizabeth's temper were like the protesting
twitterings of a sparrow in a thunder-storm. When she reproved
her now, the furious little creature, wincing and trying to check