Lois bit her lip and turned aside. Bertha began hastily to cover up the dainty white folds which showed the crumpled blue in such unfavourable contrast. Mildred drooped her eyelids, and answered with that smouldering calm which precedes a storm. "I am. That is certainly my intention." "And you mean to say you have no better dress than that in your possession?" "This is my best dress. Yes! I have no better." "And your mother actually allowed you to come away with such a wardrobe! Preposterous, I call it! People who cannot provide for themselves respectably have no business to accept invitations, in my opinion!" Now it happened that this morning Lady Sarah had risen with a bad headache, one of the consequences of which had been to make her even more fault-finding towards Mildred than usual. The old discussion about her hair had been resumed after breakfast; she had been reproved for leaving the door open; for shutting the door, for speaking too loudly; for mumbling so indistinctly that it was impossible to hear; for one imaginary offence after another, until finally she had run away in despair and taken refuge with the children in the garden. It was not only the present annoyance, therefore, it was the accumulated irritation of the morning, with which the girl had to fight at this moment, and the conflict was too hard for her strength. As she herself would have described it, she went hot and cold all over, something went "fizz" in her brain, and the next moment she leapt down from the table and confronted Lady Sarah with flaming cheeks and eyes ablaze with anger. "And--who--asked--_your_--opinion? What business is it of yours what I wear? I didn't come here on your invitation--I was asked by Mrs Faucit, and so long as she is satisfied you have no right to say a word. How dare you find fault with my mother before my face? How dare you question what she thinks right to do? you--you unkind, interfering,--_disagreeable old woman_!" There was an awful silence. Lady Sarah appeared transfixed with astonishment; her jaw fell, her eyes protruded from their sockets. The twins instinctively clasped hands, and Mrs Faucit, arrested, in the act of re-entering the room, by the sound of the last few words, stood motionless in the doorway, her face eloquent of pained surprise. Mildred glanced from one to the other. She was trembling from head to foot, her heart beat with suffocating throbs. For one moment she succeeded in maintaining her attitude of defiance; but when she met the grave scrutiny of Mrs Faucit's eyes, she burst into a storm of tears and rushed from the room. Reaction had set in, and her own irritation was as nothing to the shock which followed as she realised that--fresh from Mrs Faucit's praise and her own congratulations,--she had given way to an outburst of temper which must have horrified all who heard it.