"What for? She won't care." "You seem to think she's a heathen Chinee," said Julia. "So she is, sometimes. But not always." Esther was accordingly taken into confidence, and expressed a wish to box their ears for a pair of ninnies, until she read the note, which struck terror to her heart. "I don't feel at all nice," she said. "Though I'm not as bad as many girls. I know Mrs. Mather pays Melville five dollars a month if she isn't saucy to her. And Jane Waite tells fibs. And Jemima Watson threw her mother's watch on the floor and stamped on it." "What for?" "Because she couldn't get an example right. Julia, I wish you hadn't shown me that note. It was real mean in you. You knew it would stick in my throat." Meanwhile Mrs. Thayer was looking forward with anxiety to the day of Esther's proposed lunch party, and the storm that was to follow the announcement that she should not sanction it. Great, therefore, was her surprise when Esther came, voluntarily, to say, in a nonchalant way, put on to hide some real feeling, that she had changed her mind, and did not intend to invite the girls. "I am very glad to hear it," was the reply, "for I did not intend to provide lunch save for the family, as usual, and you would have had to recall your invitations. Henceforth, when you wish for an indulgence of this sort, come and ask my consent." The quiet dignity and firmness with which this was said, impressed Esther with such a sense of amazement that she was in no state to wage war.