"Oh, you naughty little girl--you _naughty_ girl," she heard her aunt say; and then, after her, the bird like a cork. She stood there, her mouth tightly shut, the marks of tears drying to muddy lines on her face. She was dragged off. Aunt Emily was furious at the child's silence; Aunt Emily was also aware that she must have looked what she would call "a pretty figure of fun" with her hat askew, her hair blown "anyway," and a small child of three escaping from her charge as fast as she could go. Angelina was dragged across the street, in through the squeezed front door, over the dark stairs, up into the nursery. Miss Violet's voice was heard calling, "Is that you, Emily? Tea's been waiting some time." It was nurse's afternoon out, and the nursery was grimly empty; but through the open, window came the evening sounds of the happy Square. Miss Emily placed Angelina in the middle of the room. "Now say you're sorry, you wicked child!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "Sowwy," came slowly from Angelina. Then she looked down at her doll. "Leave that doll alone. Speak as though you were sorry." "I'm velly sowwy." "What made you run away like that?" Angelina said nothing. "Come, now! Didn't you know it was very wicked?" "Yes." "Well, why did you do it, then?" "Don't know." "Don't say 'don't know' like that. You must have had some reason. Don't look at the doll like that. Put the doll down." But this Angelina would not do. She clung to Rose with a ferocious tenacity. I do not think that one must blame Miss Emily for her exasperation. That doll had had a large place in her mind for many weeks. It were as though she, Miss Emily Braid, had been personally, before the world, defied by a rag doll. Her temper, whose control had never been her strongest quality, at the vision of the dirty, obstinate child before her, at the thought of the dancing, mocking gardens behind her, flamed into sudden, trembling rage. She stepped forward, snatched Rose from Angelina's arms, crossed the room and had pushed the doll, with a fierce, energetic action, as though there was no possible time to be lost, into the fire. She snatched the poker, and with trembling hands pressed the doll down. There was a great flare of flame; Rose lifted one stolid arm to the gods for vengeance, then a stout leg in a last writhing agony. Only then, when it was all concluded, did Aunt Emily hear behind her the little half-strangled cry which made her turn. The child was standing, motionless, with so old, so desperate a gaze of despair that it was something indecent for any human being to watch. V