At her call he turned back to the door, holding out a great handful of peacock feathers which he was taking sorrowfully to his room. "Those pesky little varmints!" he exclaimed, still wrathful, "They've teetotally ruined that cock's looks. Yes, I know where they are. I've had them shut up in the corn-crib till a minute ago." "Shut up in the corn-crib!" echoed Mary and Mrs. Barnaby in the same breath. "Yes, as I told 'em, they haven't any more idea of other people's rights than weasels, and it's high time they are being taught." "Well, do you think they've learned their lesson in one dose, Sammy?" asked Mr. Barnaby, dryly, coming out from his room in time to hear his cousin's speech. "That remains to be seen," spluttered Sammy, as he strode on to his room. "They were sniffling and snubbing considerable when I let them out. I don't think they'll chase _my_ peacock any more." The "sniffling and snubbing" changed into out-and-out crying as soon as they reached Mary's side, and that was followed by heart-broken wails and demands to be taken home. Nothing comforted them. Nothing could turn them aside from their belief that they had been abused and must be taken back immediately to mommey. After nearly half an hour spent in vain attempts to silence them, Mrs. Barnaby said in sheer desperation, "Well, James, you'll just have to hitch up and take them back, even if it is so early. I hate to have Mary's visit cut short, but they'd spoil it worse if they stayed. If I only felt free to give them a good sound spanking now--" She did not finish the sentence, but looked over her spectacles so sternly that the children backed away, lest a feeling of liberty might suddenly descend upon her. As Mary pinned on her hat before the mirror in the bedroom, she turned to her hostess with a hunted look in her eyes. "Do you ever get desperate over things?" she asked. "That's the way I am now. I'm so tired of those children that the very sound of their voices sets my teeth on edge. If I only could have had this one whole day away from them I might have been able to go on with them to-morrow, but now it seems as if I can't! I just _can't_!" "I don't wonder, you poor child," was the sympathetic answer. "The worst of it is, I'm utterly discouraged," confessed Mary, almost tearfully. "I've been pluming myself on the fact that my two weeks' work had amounted to something; that I'd really made an impression, and given them all sorts of good ideas. But you see it isn't worth a row of pins. They are good only so long as I'm exercising like an acrobat, mind and body, to keep them entertained. The minute I stop they don't pay the slightest attention to my wishes." "Maybe you've done too much for them," said Mrs. Barnaby, shrewdly guessing the root of the trouble. "You told them it was a surprise school. Let the next surprise be a different sort. Turn them loose and make them hunt their own entertainment."