“A baby like me, indeed!” This was Eoaʼs sore point; and Georgie, who delighted in making her outrageous, was always harping upon it. “Mrs. Corklemore, how dare you call me, at my age, a baby?” Eoa looked down at Georgie, with great eyes flashing fire, and her clear, bright forehead wrinkling, and her light form poised like an antelopeʼs on the edge of a cliff. Mrs. Corklemore, not thinking it worth while to look up at her, carelessly threw back a curl, and went on with her rug–work. “Because you are a baby, and nothing more, Eoa.” In a moment she was tossed through the air, and sitting on Eoaʼs head, low satin chair and all. She had not time to shriek, so rapid was her elation. Little Flore, running in at the moment, clapped her hands and shouted, “Oh, ma, have a yide, a nice yide, same as me have yesterday. Me next, me next. Oh, ah!” Eoa, with the greatest ease, her figure as straight as a poplar–tree, bore the curule chair and its occupant to the end of the room, and there deposited them carefully on a semi–grand piano. “Thatʼs how we nurse the babies in India,” she cried, with a smile of sweet temper, “but it takes a big baby to do it, and some practice, I can tell you. Now, Iʼll not let you down, Mrs. Corklemore,—and if visitors come in, what will they think of our social usages? Down you donʼt come, till you have promised solemnly never to call me a baby again.” “My dear,” began Georgie, trying hard not to look ridiculous—though the position was so unfavourable—“my dear child——” “No, not my dear child, even! _Miss Nowell_, if you please, and nothing else.” “Miss Nowell, if you will only lift me down—oh, it is polished so nastily, I am slipping off already—I will promise solemnly to call you only what you like, all the rest of my life.” Eoa lifted her off in an instant. “But mind, I will be even with you,” cried Georgie, through her terror, when safe on the floor once more. “I donʼt care _that_ for you,” answered Eoa, snapping her fingers like a copper–cap; “only I will have proper respect shown to me by people I particularly dislike. People I love may call me what, or do with me what, they please. My father was just the same; and I donʼt want to be any better than he was; and I donʼt believe God wants it.” “He must be easily contented, then.” Georgie, with all her deliciousness, could never pass a chance of sarcasm. “Now Iʼll go and have it out with Uncle Cradock, about having you for my ayah.” Mrs. Corklemore trembled far more at those words than at finding herself on the piano. This strange girl—whom she had so despised—was baffling all her tactics, and with no other sword and shield but those of truth and candour.