"With regard," went on Regina in her most magnificent manner, "with regard to Gwendoline Hammond and her miserable party, I consider it distinctly a feather in your cap, Maudie, that you were left uninvited. If it were told to me, as I presume it was told to Mrs. Hammond, that one of you had been brutally cruel to a child many sizes smaller than yourself and incapable of self-defence, I should mete out the severest punishment that it was possible for me to give you. You have never been punished, because it has never been necessary. Some mothers," she continued, "would punish you for using such a term as 'the devil to pay.' I regard that as a venial offence which your own common-sense will teach you is inexpedient as a phrase for everyday conversation. But brutal cowardice is a matter which I should find it very difficult to forgive, and I am extremely proud that you should have taken the part of a poor little child who was not able to do it for herself. I shall tell your father when he comes home, and I shall ask him to reward you in a suitable manner; and meantime, when I see Miss Drummond--" "If you please, mother," broke in Julia, who was, as I have said, the dominant one of the two sisters, "if you please, mother, just drop it about Miss Drummond. We are quite able to fight our own battles at school--we don't want Miss Drummond, or anybody else, to think that we come peaching to you telling you everything. We tell you because we are fond of you and you ask, and--and--we don't like to lie to you." She stammered a little, because on occasion no one could tell a prettier lie than Julia Whittaker. "In fact," ended Julia, "our lives wouldn't be worth living if it was known that we came peaching home." "It is your duty to tell me everything," said Regina. "Well, you might say the same about Gwendoline Hammond," remarked Julia, with a matter-of-fact air. "You are within your right," said Mrs. Whittaker; "you are within your right. I apologize." "Oh, please don't do that," said Julia, magnanimously; "it isn't at all necessary. But you please won't say anything to Miss Drummond about it--not unless she should speak to you, which she won't. She was very indignant with Gwendoline when she found the whole truth out, and I believe she--at least I did hear that she paid a special visit to Mrs. Hammond and made things extremely unpleasant for Gwendoline. I don't wonder she didn't ask Maudie to her party, because her father happened to be there, and he was very angry about it. He almost stopped her having her party altogether, only Mrs. Hammond had asked some people and she did not like to go back upon her word and disgrace Gwendoline before everybody. So you understand, mother, not a word, please, to Miss Drummond." "My dear child," said Regina, "my dear original, splendid child!"