"They're mine!" cried Laura, making a dive for the things.

"They're not any such thing!" cried indignant Jean. "I made that doll's dress myself, and I know the lace on those handkerchiefs."

"They're my mother's," protested Laura. "I took 'em out of her drawer."

"They're not," contradicted Mabel, prying Laura's fingers apart and forcing her to drop one of the crumpled handkerchiefs. "Look at that monogram--'M B' for Mabel Bennett."

"It's no such thing," lied Laura, stoutly. "It stands for Bertha Milligan and that's my mother's name."

"Give me that other handkerchief this instant," demanded Jean, giving Laura a slight shake. "If you don't, we'll take it away from you."

"Take the old rag," said Laura. "My mother gives away better handkerchiefs than these to beggars. I just took 'em anyway to scare Varjory Male and Babel Mennett, the silly babies."

After this enlightening experience, the girls never for a moment left their unwelcome visitor alone in any of the rooms of Dandelion Cottage.

They stood her for almost a week longer, principally because there seemed to be no way of getting rid of her. Mabel, indeed, had several lively quarrels with her during that time, because quick-tempered Mabel, always strictly truthful herself, could not tolerate deceit in anyone else, and she had, of course, lost all faith in Laura.

The end came suddenly one Friday afternoon. Miss Blossom had sent to the girls, by mail, a photograph of her own charming self, and nothing that the cottage contained was more precious. After one of the usual tiffs with Mabel, high-handed Laura spitefully scratched a disfiguring mustache right across the beautiful face, ruining the priceless treasure beyond repair.

Even Laura looked slightly dismayed at the result of her spiteful work.

The others for a moment were too horror-stricken for words. Then Mabel, with blazing eyes, sprang to her feet and flung the cottage door wide open.

"You go home, Laura Milligan!" she cried. "Don't you ever dare to come inside this house again!"

"Yes, go," cried mild Bettie, for once thoroughly roused. "We've tried to be nice to you and there hasn't been a single day that you haven't been rude and horrid. Go home this minute. We're done with you."

"I won't go until I'm good and ready," retorted Laura, tearing the disfigured photograph in two and scornfully tossing the pieces into a corner. "Such a fuss about a skinny old maid's picture."

"You shan't stay one instant longer!" cried indignant Jean, stepping determinedly behind Laura, placing her hands on the girl's shoulders, and making a sudden run for the door. "There! You're out. Don't you ever attempt to come in again."

Bettie, grasping the situation and the Milligan baby at the same time, promptly set the boy outside. She had handled him with the utmost gentleness, but he always roared if anyone touched him, and he roared now.

"Yah!" yelled Laura, "I'll tell my mother you pinched him--slapped him, too."

"Sapped him, too," wailed the baby.

"Well," said Jean, turning the key in the lock, "we'll have to keep the door locked after this. Mercy! I never behaved so dreadfully to anybody before and I hope I'll never have to again."

CHAPTER 11

An Embarrassing Visitor

Up to the time of the unpleasantness with Laura, the girls had unlocked the cottage in the morning and had left it unlocked until they were ready to go home at night, for the girls spent all their waking hours at Dandelion Cottage. Bettie, indeed, had the care of the youngest two Tucker babies, but they were good little creatures and when the girls played with their dolls they were glad to include the two placid babies, just as if they too were dolls. The littlest baby, in particular, made a remarkably comfortable plaything, for it was all one to him whether he slept in Jean's biggest doll's cradle, or in the middle of the dining-room table, as long as he was permitted to sleep sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. When he wasn't asleep, he sucked his thumb contentedly, crowed happily on one of the cottage beds, or rolled cheerfully about on the cottage floor. The older baby, too, obligingly stayed wherever the girls happened to put him. After this experience with the Tucker infants, the Milligan baby had proved a great disappointment to the girls, for they had hoped to use him, too, as an animated doll; but he had refused steadfastly to make friends even with Bettie, whose way with babies was something beautiful to see.

The girls were all required to do their own mending, but they found it no hardship to do their darning on their own doorstep on sunny days, or around the dining-room table if the north wind happened to be blowing, for they always had so many interesting things to talk about.

During the daytime, the cottage was never left entirely alone. It was occupied even at mealtimes because the four families dined and supped at different hours; for instance, Marjory's Aunty Jane always liked her tea at half-past five, but Jean's people did not dine until seven. Owing to the impossibility of capturing all the boys at one time, supper at the Tucker house was a movable feast, so Bettie usually ate whenever she found it most convenient. As for Mabel, it is doubtful if she knew the exact hours for meals at the Bennett house because she was invariably late. After the handkerchief episode, the girls planned that one or another of them should always be in the cottage from the time that it was opened in the morning until it was again locked for the night. The morning after the later quarrel, however, the girls met by previous arrangement on Mabel's doorstep, went in a body to the cottage, and, after they were all inside, carefully locked the door.

"We'll be on the safe side, anyway," said Jean. "Though I shouldn't think that Laura would ever want to come near the place again."

"Oh, she'll come fast enough," said Mabel. "She's cheeky enough for anything. Do you s'pose she told her mother about it? She said she was going to."

"Pshaw!" said Marjory. "She was always threatening to tell her mother, but nothing ever came of it. If she'd told her mother half the things she _said_ she was going to, she wouldn't have had time to eat or sleep."

It was hopeless, the girls had decided, to attempt to mend the ruined photograph, so, at Bettie's suggestion, they had sorrowfully cut it into four pieces of equal size, which they divided between them. They had just laid the precious fragments tenderly away in their treasure boxes when the doorbell rang with such a loud, prolonged, jangling peal that everybody jumped.

"Laura!" exclaimed the four girls.

"No," said Jean, cautiously drawing back the curtain of the front window and peeping out. "It's Mrs. Milligan!"

"Goodness!" whispered Marjory, "there's no knowing what Laura told her--she never _did_ tell anything straight."

"Let's keep still," said Mabel. "Perhaps she'll think there's nobody home."

"No hope of that," said Jean. "She saw us come in. But, pshaw! she can't hurt us anyway."

"No," said Marjory. "What's the use of being afraid? _We_ didn't do anything to be ashamed of. Aunty Jane says we should have turned Laura out the day she took the handkerchiefs."

"I'm not exactly afraid," said Bettie, "but I don't like Mrs. Milligan.

Still, we'll have to let her in, I suppose."

A second vigorous peal at the bell warned them that their visitor was getting impatient.

"You're the biggest and the most dignified," said Marjory, giving Jean a shove. "_You_ go."

"Don't ask her in if you can help it," warned Bettie, in a pleading whisper. "The doorbell sounds as if she didn't like us very well."

But the visitor did not wait to be asked to come in. The moment Jean turned the key the door was flung open and Mrs. Milligan brushed past the astonished quartet and sailed into the parlor, where she seated herself bolt upright on the cozy corner.

"I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Milligan, in a hard, cold tone that fell unpleasantly on the cottagers' ears, "if you consider it ladylike for four great overgrown girls to pitch into one poor innocent little child and a helpless baby? Your conduct yesterday was simply _outrageous_. You might have injured those children for life, or even broken the baby's back."

"Broken the baby's back!" gasped Bettie, in honest amazement. "Why, I simply lifted him with my two hands and set him just outside the door. I never was rough with _any_ baby in all my life!"

"I happen to know, on excellent authority," said Mrs. Milligan, "that you slapped both of those helpless children and threw them down the front steps. Laura was so excited about it that she couldn't sleep, and the poor baby cried half the night--we fear that he's injured internally."

"Nobody _here_ injured him," said Mabel. "He always cries all the time, anyhow."

"We _did_ put them out and for a very good reason," said Jean, speaking as respectfully as she could, "but we certainly didn't hurt either of them. I'm sorry if the baby isn't well, but I know it isn't our fault."

"Laura walked down the steps," said Bettie, "and the baby turned over and slid down on his stomach the way he always does."

"I should think that a _minister's_ daughter," said Mrs. Milligan, with a withering glance at poor shrinking Bettie, "would scorn to tell such lies."

Bettie, who had never before been accused of untruthfulness, looked the picture of conscious guilt; a tide of crimson flooded her cheeks and she fingered the buttons on her blouse nervously. She was too dumbfounded to speak a word in her own defense. Mabel, however, was only too ready.

"Bettie never told a lie in her life," cried the indignant little girl.