Lulu would hear the remark with a scornful smile and toss of the head, sometimes saying proudly, "I wouldn't let anybody call you names to me, Gracie; and I wouldn't be such a little goose as to be wheedled and flattered into putting up with being half-starved." There had been a time when Mrs. Scrimp tried to prevent and punish such daring words, but she had given it up long since, and contented herself with sighing sadly over the "depravity of that irrepressible child." She had once or twice threatened to write to Captain Raymond and tell him that Lulu was unmanageable, but the child coolly replied, "I wish you would; for then papa would send Gracie and me somewhere else to stay." "Where you would, perhaps, fare a great deal worse," returned Mrs. Scrimp wrathfully. "I am willing to risk it," Lulu said; and that was the end of it, for Mrs. Scrimp would have been very loath to lose the children's board. One pleasant October morning Lulu came down a trifle late to her breakfast. Mrs. Scrimp and Gracie were already seated at the table and had began their meal. "Lulu," said Mrs. Scrimp with a portentous frown, "you were in the pantry last night, helping yourself." "Of course I was," returned the child as she took her seat at the table. "I told you I wouldn't go without my supper, and you didn't have Ann get any for me; so what could I do but go and help myself?" "You have no right to go to my pantry and take the food that belongs to me. It's neither more nor less than stealing, Miss Lulu Raymond." "Well, Aunt Beulah, what do you call it when you take the money my father pays you for feeding Gracie and me, and don't give us the food he has paid for?" Mrs. Scrimp colored violently at that, but quickly answered, "He doesn't pay for any particular kind or quantity, and doesn't want you overfed; and I don't consider it at all good for you to eat after three o'clock, as I've told you fifty times." "Oftener than that, I dare say," returned Lulu with indifference, "but you might say it five hundred times and I shouldn't believe it a bit the more. Papa and mamma never had us put to bed without our supper; they always gave us plenty to eat whenever we were hungry, and Gracie was far stronger then than she is now." Mrs. Scrimp was exasperated into a return to old tactics. "Lulu, you are the most impudent child I ever saw!" she exclaimed, "and shall go without supper to-night, if it were only to punish you for talking as you have this morning." "No, I'll not. I'll have something to eat if I must go to the neighbors for it." "I'll lock you up." "Then I'll call out to the people in the street and tell them you won't give me enough to eat. And just as soon as papa comes I'll tell him all about it right before you." "You wouldn't dare tell him how you've talked to me; he'd punish you for your impertinence." "No, he would say it was justifiable under the circumstances."