"He _did_ want me!"--choking with a sob.

"Think," resumed the governess, inflecting her tones eloquently, "of the fortune he spends on your dresses, and your pony, and your beautiful car! And he hires all of us"--she swept a gesture--"to wait on you, you naughty girl, and try to make a little lady out of you--"

"I hate ladies!" cried Gwendolyn, rapping her heels by way of emphasis.

"Tale-bearing is _vulgar_," asserted Miss Royle.

"Next year I'm going to _day_-school like Johnnie _Blake!_"

"Oh, hush your nonsense!" commanded Thomas, irritably.

Miss Royle glanced up at him. "That will do," she snapped.

He bridled up. "What the little imp needs is a good paddlin'," he declared.

"Well, _you_ have nothing to do with the disciplining of the child. That is _my_ business."

"It's what she needs, all the same. The very idear of her bawlin' all the mornin' at the top of her lungs--"

"I did _not_ at the top of my lungs," contradicted Gwendolyn. "I cried with my mouth."

"--So's the whole house can hear," continued Thomas; "and beatin' about the floor. It's clear shameful, _I_ say, and enough to give a sensitive person the nerves. As I remarked to Jane only---"

"You remark too many things to Jane," interposed the governess, curtly.

Now he sobered. "I _hope_ you ain't displeased with me," he ventured.

"_Ain't_ displeased?" repeated Miss Royle, more than ever fretful. "Oh, Thomas, _do_ stop murdering the King's English!"

At that Gwendolyn sat up, shook back her hair, and raised a startled face to the row of toys in the glass-fronted case. Murdering the King's English! Had he _dared_ to harm her soldier with the scarlet coat?

"I was urgin' your betterin', too, Miss Royle," reminded Thomas, gently.

"I says to Jane, I says--"

The soldier was in his place, safe. Relieved, Gwendolyn straightened out once more on her back.

"--'The whole lot of us ought to be paid higher wages than we're gettin' for it's a real trial to have to be under the same roof with such a provokin'--'"

Miss Royle interrupted by vigorously bobbing her head. "Oh, that I have to make my living in this way!" she exclaimed, voice deep with mournfulness. "I'd rather wash dishes! I'd rather scrub floors! I'd rather _star-r-ve!_"

Something in the vehemence, or in the cadence, of Miss Royle's declaration again gave Gwendolyn that sense of triumph. With a sudden curling up of her small nose, she giggled.

Miss Royle whirled with a rustle of silk skirts. "Gwendolyn," she said threateningly, "if you're going to act like that, I shall know there's something the matter with you, and I shall certainly call a doctor."

Gwendolyn lay very still. As Thomas glanced down at her, smirking exultantly, her smile went, and the pink of wrath once more surged into her face.

"And the doctor'll give nasty medicine," declared Thomas, "or maybe he'll cut out your appendix!"

"Potter won't let him."

"Potter! Huh!--He'll cut out your appendix, and charge your papa a thousand dollars. Oh, you bet, them that's naughty always pays the piper."

Gwendolyn got to her feet. "I _won't_ pay the piper," she retorted. "I'm going to give all my money to the hand-organ man--_all_ of it. I like _him_," tauntingly. "But I hate--you."

"_We_ hate a sneak," observed Miss Royle, blandly.

The little figure went rigid. "And I hate _you_," she cried shrilly.

Then buried her face in her hands.

"_Gwen-do-lyn'!_" It was a solemn and horrified warning.

Gwendolyn turned and walked slowly toward the window-seat. Her breast was heaving.

"Come back and sit in this chair," bade the governess.

Gwendolyn paused, but did not turn.

"Shall I fetch you?"

"Can't I even look out of the window?" burst forth Gwendolyn. "Oh, you--you--you--" (she yearned to say Snake-in-the--grass!--yet dared not) "you mean! _mean!_" Her voice rose to a scream.

Miss Royle stood up. "I see that you want to go to bed," she declared.

The torrent of Gwendolyn's anger and resentment surged and broke bounds.

She pivoted, arms tossing, face aflame. There were those wicked words across the river that each night burned themselves upon the dark. She had never pronounced them aloud before; but--

"Starch!" she shrilled, stamping a foot, "Villa sites! Borax! _Shirts!_"

Miss Royle gave Thomas a worried stare. He, in turn, fixed her with a look of alarm. So much Gwendolyn saw before she flung herself down again, sobbing aloud, but tearlessly, her cheek upon the rug.

She heard Miss Royle rustle toward the school-room; heard Thomas close the door leading into the hall. There were times--the nursery had seen a few--when the trio found it well to let her severely alone.

Now only a hoarse lamenting broke the quiet.

It was an hour later when some one tapped on the school-room door--Miss French, doubtless, since it was her allotted time. The lamentations swelled then--and grew fainter only when the last foot-fall died away on the stairs. Then Gwendolyn slept.

Awakening, she lay and watched out through the upper panes of the front window. Across the square of serene blue framed by curtains and casing, small clouds were drifting--clouds dazzlingly white. She pretended the clouds were fat, snowy sheep that were passing one by one.

Thus had snowy flocks crossed above the trout-stream. Oh? where was that stream? the glade through which it flowed? the shingled cottage among the trees?

With all her heart Gwendolyn wished she were a butterfly.

Suddenly she sat up. She had found her way alone to the library. Why not put on hat and coat _and go to Johnnie Blake's?_

She was at the door of the wardrobe before she remembered the kidnapers, and realized that she dared not walk out alone. But Potter liked the country. Besides, he knew the way. She decided to ask him to go with her--old and stooped though he was. Perhaps she would also take the pretty nurse-maid at the corner. And those who were left behind--Miss Royle and Thomas and Jane--would all be sorry when she was gone.

But let them fret! Let them weep, and wish her back! She--