"I am sure I can," I answered, "only tell me. When I know, I can help you." Bess buried her head against my shoulder, and then rambled on rather incoherently-- "Do you remember what I told you about Hals' birthday--how there wasn't a conjurer but a white dog, and how, after the tricks were done, Miss Jordan read us stories and told us poems? Well, there was one bit of poetry that I wish I had never heard, nor Hals either, and that was Sister Helen, because it has made me very wicked. It has made me think of how I could pay out Fräulein. We both hate her, she does nothing but punish; not punish you to make you good, but to make you horrid. Hals catches it for not washing his hands, for not brushing his hair, for not putting on his coat, for losing his blotting-paper, for dropping his pencil. Everything means a punishment with Fräulein. She pounces on him like a cat, and she has him everywhere." Then, after a pause, Bess began again. "Hals and I thought we would punish her, too--once and for all." "Yes, Bess," I inquired; "but what did you do?" "Mum, I was very naughty," replied my little girl, tearfully. "To-day, Hals and I went upstairs, up to the tower, and I got a dustpan and two candle-ends, and we lighted some sticks and some paper in the dustpan--I stole some matches out of papa's room--and then we melted up the wax." "And then, Bess?" "Then, when the wax was sticky and horrid, we stuck pins into it, and I said, 'Please, God, let Fräulein die.' And Hals did not want to say it, but I made him, for I said I wouldn't have God angry with only me. "And then I called out, 'Let her die, God, in horrid pain, like the snake last year that Burbidge killed and that wouldn't die straight off; and then, dear Lord, let her go to hell and be kept there ever afterwards.' But Hals wouldn't say that, because he had heard Parsons, their stud groom, say you must give every beggar a chance, so he bargained that she should come out one day and have some chocolates. To which I said, if the Lord lets her out of hell, it shall be only common chocolates, not like those that Uncle Paul brought me back from Paris. Then Hals agreed, Mum Mum; only he said, for all she was a German woman, the chock was not to be too nasty, seeing that she would only have some once a year. "Then Hals wanted to go away; but I said he shouldn't till we had done the whole job. "Then he and I blew out the fire and stamped upon the wax, and it was quite soft and squashy and I pricked my foot; but nurse does not know, for Eliza bathed me to-night, and Eliza did not notice." "And after that?" I asked. "Oh," sobbed Bess, "you will be very angry." "Never mind, go on," I said. "Then," said Bess, steeled to the point, in a penetrating broken chirp, "after that I told Hals we must say bad words, for I knew that bad words can do a great deal. But Hals couldn't think of any, so I called him a muff and a milksop, and I told him to repeat after me all that I said."