“That will do, Richard. Go and find your pumps. Now, get right up from the floor, and if you scratch the Morris chair I shall speak to your father. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Get right up—you must expect to be hurt, if you pull so. Come, Richard! Now, stop crying—a great boy like you! I am sorry I hurt your elbow, but you know very well you aren’t crying for that at all. Come along!” His sister flitted by the door in an engaging _déshabillé_, her accordeon-pleated skirt held carefully from the floor, her hair in two glistening blue-knotted pigtails. A trail of rose-scented soap floated through the hall. “Hurry up, Dick, or we’ll be late,” she called back sweetly, secure in the knowledge that if such virtuous accents maddened him still further, no one could blame her. His rage justified her faith. “Oh, you shut up, will you!” he snarled. [Illustration: “_Secure in the knowledge that if such virtuous accents maddened him still further, no one could blame her._”] She looked meek, and listened to his deprivation of dessert for the rest of the week with an air of love for the sinner and hatred for the sin that deceived even her older sister, who was dressing her. A desperately patient monologue from the next room indicated the course of events there. “Your necktie is on the bed. No, I don’t know where the blue one is—it doesn’t matter; that is just as good. Yes, it is. No, you can _not_. You will have to wear one. Because no one ever goes without. I don’t know why. “Many a boy would be thankful and glad to have silk stockings. Nonsense—your legs are warm enough. I don’t believe you. Now, Richard, how perfectly ridiculous! There is no left and right to stockings. You have no time to change. Shoes are a different thing. Well, hurry up, then. Because they are made so, I suppose. I don’t know why. [Illustration: “’_Stop your scowling, for goodness’ sake, Dick._’”] “Brush it more on that side—no, you can’t go to the barber’s. You went last week. It looks perfectly well. I cut it? Why, I don’t know how to trim hair. Anyway, there isn’t time now. It will have to do. Stop your scowling, for goodness’ sake, Dick. Have you a handkerchief? It makes no difference, you must carry one. You _ought_ to want to use it. Well, you should. Yes, they always do, whether they have colds or not. I don’t know why. “Your Golden Text! The idea! No, you cannot. You can learn that Sunday before church. This is not the time to learn Golden Texts. I never saw such a child. Now take your pumps and find the plush bag. Why not? Put them right with Ruth’s. That’s what the bag was made for. Well, how do you want to carry them? Why, I never heard of anything so silly! You will knot the strings. I don’t care if they do carry skates that way—skates are not slippers. You’d lose them. Very well, then, only hurry up. I should think you’d be ashamed to have them dangling around your neck that way. Because people never _do_ carry them so. I don’t know why.