then she asked about Mr. Turner, for she wants to have things done to me, and I told her about him. I wouldn't have her think I wanted to get out of it. She called me names and she thinks I taught Ruth to tell untruths; she said so. She says if Ruth doesn't get well it will be my fault. O Delia! I didn't do it. Honestly I wasn't to blame. But if Ruth is going to be sick and they think I did it--I want my mother! How can I bear it without my mother?" Delia gently patted the dark head that had flung itself into her lap. Her heart ached for the girl, but her simple mind was not equal to the task of consolation in a case like this. She could not cope with its difficulties. She knew Nan was to blame for much, but she thought in her heart that Mrs. Newton had no right to vent her wrath upon the girl without first having heard her side of the story. She could not console Nan, she thought, without seeming to convict Mrs. Newton, and if she "stood up for" Mrs. Newton, Nan would think her lacking in sympathy for herself. But in the midst of her wondering, up bobbed the head from under her hand. "Mrs. Newton says I teach the children to do wrong. She says I'm a hoyden. She says I left Ruth in the cold and that I was a coward. She didn't give me time to tell her about how I tried to get Ruth home myself, and that when I couldn't, how I just howled for help. At least she didn't want to listen when I got so I could speak. She says everybody thinks I'm bad, and they want to have me attended to. She thinks I taught Ruth to tell lies. Think, Delia, lies! When she said that it was like knives! O Delia? I know you've been awfully good to me always, and taken care of me since mamma died and all, but if it is so dreadful to play ball and skate and do things like that, why did you let me in the first place? I hate to sew and do worsted work and be prim, but perhaps, if you had brought me up that way I might have got so I could stand it. Don't you think if you had begun when I was a baby I might have? I don't want to have people hate me--honestly, I don't. When they talk to me, and say I'm rowdyish because I walk fences and play ball with the boys and climb trees, I try not to show it, but it hurts me way deep down. I try to say something back so they'll think I don't care, and sometimes, if it hurts too much, I pretend not to hear, and that makes them madder than ever. They don't know how, when it's like that, I can't speak. Perhaps if you'd brought me up so, I might have liked dolls and thought it was fun to sit still and sew on baby clothes. But I don't like to, and I can't help it. Mrs. Newton thinks because I whistle and make a noise that I'm just mean and hateful and everything else. She thinks I don't care. Why, Delia! if anything happened to Ruth I'd feel exactly as if I didn't want to live another day. I--I--O Delia!" For the first time she gave way, and, hiding her head in her arms, sobbed heavily.