"Let them alone! I never knew you so awkward. You'll break one yet,"--as the glasses tinkled together dangerously. Again Miss Barry scrutinized the flushed face and shining eyes above the flat-chested little figure. "Where have you been, Blanche Aurora?" "Up in Miss Linda's room." "What doing? You got through up there hours ago." "She hollered to me down the stairs to come when I got through in the dinin'-room." Miss Barry's eyes wore their extracting expression. She wondered what form of intoxicant Linda had been administering now. The Scylla of the chocolate gorge had passed safely. What was this Charybdis that threatened? "Well?" said Miss Barry suggestively. "Well," returned the "help," dancing defiance in the round eyes which returned her employer's regard brazenly. "Don't you be sassy, Blanche Aurora," warned Miss Barry. "I ain't," answered the other; and as her mistress watched her radiant countenance, she had her first doubt as to whether Blanche Aurora was really so very homely. There were such things as ugly ducklings who outwitted their neighbors. "Has Miss Linda been giving you more candy?" "No. Clo'es," returned the other in such a high key of ecstasy that Miss Barry recoiled and winked. "How many times must I tell you that I'm not deaf!" she said sternly. "What kind of clothes?" "Pink--and blue--and not worn out," was the blissful reply. "Absurd. I can't imagine my niece having anything sensible and durable enough for a little girl." "They ain't," declared Blanche Aurora, her eyes seeing visions. "They ain't sensible--nor durable--nor serviceable." Her smile was near-seraphic. "Then they're not appropriate," said Miss Barry severely. "No'm," assented the other sweetly. Silence for a moment, then the mistress broke forth:-- "That's what came in that great package yesterday, then." "Yes'm. She sent 'way to Chicago. She can't wear 'em 'count of her Pa dyin'," explained Blanche Aurora, with an evident tempering of grief at the loss of Lambert Barry, Esq., respected head of Barry & Co. "Linda has no judgment!" The low vexed soliloquy was not directed at Miss Barry's "help," but she caught it. "No, she ain't got no judgment," shrilled Blanche Aurora triumphantly, "but I bet she knows how a girl feels that ain't got anything pretty to wear, and has to go 'round lookin' like somethin' put up in the field to scare the crows." The child's eyes glistened anew and her voice grew passionate. "I tell you what I'm goin' to do, Miss Barry, the first day I wear that pink dress. I'm goin' to take this one,"--she plucked scornfully at a fold of the faded gingham,--"and I'm goin' to kick it into the ocean. Kick it--_hard_." She suited the action to the word, and the glasses tinkled again as she thumped the baseboard. "That's very wrong, Blanche Aurora. That dress isn't ragged. Your mother mended that last tear very neatly. It would do quite well for your little sister."