“Don’t make so much noise, Jimmie,” she called from the piano. He stopped running about and sat down on a rug. In a few minutes he began drumming on the floor with his heels. “Jimmie! Did you hear me? I tell you to stop that noise!” Nannie’s tone was one to which Dimmie was a stranger. “What _can_ I do?” asked the child. “Be still, like a good boy,” his grandmother answered. “I am a good boy,” averred Dimmie, secure in his lifelong experience of the approval of himself expressed by his parents and “Uncle Jim.” “You’re not. You’re a very bad little boy,” declared Nannie. Dimmie’s lip quivered. Then his eyes flashed, and a look came into them which recalled Lucy. “I _ain’t_ a bad boy! You’re a bad woman to say I’m a bad boy!” “Well, it’s true, or I wouldn’t say it.” “It ain’t true, neither. You’re a story to say what ain’t true about me.” “Do you mean to say that I lie, Jimmie? Don’t you know that it’s very rude and wicked to call anybody a liar?” “Well, you _are_ a liar!” shouted Dimmie in righteous wrath. Lucy, entering from the kitchen, heard the indictment. “Why, Dimmie! What in the world possessed you to say such an awful thing?” demanded his mother in astonishment. Dimmie began to cry. “She said I was a naughty boy,” he wailed. “Well, you are, when you talk like that,” affirmed Lucy. “You can go upstairs to your room and stay till I tell you you can come out. I won’t have my little boy saying things like this!” A few minutes later Mrs. Merwent peered into Dimmie’s room and saw him sitting on the floor in a corner, his mouth trembling and his eyes red and tearful. “Come here, Jimmie,” she tempted. “I won’t,” he refused vehemently, in all the exaltation of bursting pride that takes no heed of consequences. “Come on, dear,” she pleaded. “Go ’way!” he ordered gallantly. “I hate you!” Nannie entered the room and went over to the child, kneeling down beside him. Dimmie turned his back, resolutely winking away the additional tears that flowed at the indignity of being spied on in his humiliation. “Don’t hate Nannie,” she whispered. “Nannie loves you. Poor Nannie!” Dimmie, still silent, winked harder than ever. “Nannie didn’t punish you. It was Mamma,” she pursued. “You made her,” he insisted accusingly. “No, I didn’t, Jimmie. If I had known she was going to send you up here I wouldn’t have said anything.” Nannie’s voice was sweet and low. “My name ain’t Jimmie. It’s Dimmie,” he stipulated, weakening. “Oh, yes. I forgot, Dimmie. See I’ve brought you some candy,” she continued, displaying the treasure. Dimmie’s face lighted and he put out his hand. “Wait a minute, Jimmie--Dimmie, I mean.” Nannie pushed his hand away. The tragedy fell on Dimmie’s soul again. “It’s yours, Jimmie, but you mustn’t try to grab things like that.” “Can I have all of it?” he asked anxiously. “Yes. It’s all for you if you will love Nannie.” The bribe changed hands. Dimmie was beaming.