Miss Cripps had no savoir faire whatever, and they were all taken by surprise, and stared silently at the apparition in evening dress, suddenly appearing in that dull room.

"How sleepy you all are!" cried Mrs. Russelthorpe. "I never saw such quiet children! Do you never have any conversation? One would think I beat you. Where's Margaret? Oh, sitting in a corner as usual. You are getting much too old for dolls, Margaret. Miss Cripps shouldn't allow you to be such a baby—why, how old are you?"

Meg crimsoned up to the very roots of her hair, clasped her doll more tightly, her eyes growing round and dilated, and remained speechless.

"The child's a fool! How—old—are—you?" with exaggerated clearness, and a full stop between each word.

"Twelve," murmured Meg; and then began to cry from sheer nervousness. There are some natures whom tears aggravate beyond endurance; Aunt Russelthorpe lost patience and shook her niece, and the doll fell to the ground.

It was an old and worn and dirty doll, and Mrs. Russelthorpe hated anything old; it was awkward of Meg to drop it, and awkwardness set her nerves on edge. She caught the doll up by its leg, and with an exclamation of disgust threw it into the fire.

Meg screamed, and sprang forward to save it, with her face suddenly as white as her pinafore. Before any one could stop her, she had plunged her hand into the flames, and dragged out a melting mass.

Mrs. Russelthorpe, with praiseworthy presence of mind, caught up the rug and smothered her niece in it.

The blaze was out in a minute, but Meg's arm was badly burnt, and her doll was a blackened stump.

The child was beside herself with grief, and for the moment she no more felt physical pain than if she had been under chloroform. She turned to her aunt with her grey eyes blazing.

"Oh! how I hate you, Aunt Russelthorpe!" she cried. "I can't burn you—I wish—I wish I could; but I will hate you every moment of every day just as long as ever I live!"

It was after this episode that Meg took to slipping away in play-hours, and wandering off on her own devices. She felt secretly sore with Miss Cripps, and Laura and Kate, who had all looked on, and done nothing to avert the tragedy. She buried her doll in a corner of Bryanston Square, wrapped in a cambric 

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