"You aren't busy, Harriet," said Ralph, laughing; "why, you're doing nothing at all." "Yes I am; I am thinking; go away, both of you, I don't wish to talk to you." "Oh, Harriet!" said Ralph. There was a cry of pain in his voice, and just for a minute Harriet's resolve to be intensely disagreeable wavered; but Robina's voice recalled her to her worst self. "Ralph, I must!" she whispered. Then she said aloud: "I do want you to ride Bo-peep this morning, Harriet. And you can easily wear my habit, although it may be a little big for you. Please, Harriet, do come downstairs and be nice and jolly with us all. You shall ride Bo-peep, and I will ride whichever donkey you have selected. I love riding a donkey, it is such fun." "Oh!" said Harriet; "oh!--before I'd demean myself to tell such lies! You love to ride on a donkey, do you? Then ride one, I am sure I don't care. But as to my demeaning myself by getting on your pony's back--I may be small, but I'm not as small as all that! No: go, both of you; I hate and detest you both. Ralph, you need not consider me your mother any more. I am not your school-mother--I am nothing at all to you. I am just a very cross, angry girl and oh, do go away, please!" "Come, Ralph," said Robina. She took the little boy to the door. She opened the door; she pushed Ralph outside. "You are just angry, Harriet," she said then; "but I know you will be sorry by and by; and indeed, indeed, neither Ralph nor I are what you think us." "Oh go--go!" said Harriet; and Robina went. The moment this happened, Harriet flew to the door, and locked it. "Now am I to be left in peace?" she thought. She was in a white heat of rage. At that moment, there was no bitter, angry, nor desperate thing she would not say. She knew perfectly well that she had injured her own cause; that now Ralph could never love her. Had she not told him to his face that she hated him?--little Ralph, who had never from his birth had one harsh word addressed to him. Had she not said--oh, with such vehemence, such hot, angry rage, that she detested him, that she could not bear him in her presence? Well, she did not care. She was in too great a fury at present to regret her own words. Robina and Ralph had taken her at her word: they had gone away. There was absolute stillness upstairs. Sunshine Lodge was a big house, and to Harriet's bedroom not a sound penetrated. She could not even hear the merry voices of the gay cavalcade that must even now be starting for the sea-shore.