Maudie went very red and looked extremely uncomfortable. "I--I--did hear something about it," she stammered. "How was it that you were not asked?" inquired Regina, with an air very much like that of a porcupine suddenly shooting its quills into evidence. "Oh, Gwendoline Hammond is a mean little sneak!" burst out Julia, who was much the bolder of the sisters. "A sneak? How a sneak? What had she to sneak about?" demanded Regina. "Well, it was like this, mother. Gwendoline is an awful bully, you know, and poor little Tuppenny was being frightfully bullied by her one day, and she's a dear little thing, she can't take care of herself--somebody's got to stand up for her--and Maudie punched her head." "Punched her head! And what was she doing?" "Well, she was twisting poor little Tuppenny's arm around." "What! That mere child? And Gwendoline head and shoulders taller than she?" "Yes." "And you say Maudie--punched her head?" "Yes, and she punched it hard, too. And then Gwendoline went blubbering home, and Mrs. Hammond came to Miss Drummond, and--" Well, really, my reader, I hesitate to say what happened next, but as this is a true chronicle I had better make the plunge and get it over and done with--"and then," said Julia, solemnly, "there was the devil to pay!" "You had better not put it in that way," said Regina, hurriedly. I must confess that she had the greatest difficulty to choke down a laugh. "You had better not put it in that way. 'The devil to pay' is next door to swearing itself, to say nothing of being what a great many people would call excessively vulgar; and if you were heard to say such a thing at school, you would get yourselves into dreadful trouble, and me too. I shall be obliged, Julia, if you will not use that expression again." "Very well, mother," said Julia, with an air of great meekness, which, I may say in passing, she was far from feeling.