"I shall work a piece," said Antoinette, with decision. "I saw a lovely one at my cousin's, in Greenwich—a shepherdess, with her crook, and some sheep and lambs, with their wool all done in French knots with white chenille and gray floss. The shepherdess has on a blue silk gown with real gold spangles. Oh, it is lovely!" "Yes, and so sweetly natural—a blue silk spangled gown to tend sheep in!" said Belle Adair. "I wonder they did not spangle the sheep too: it would have been about as sensible." "Just as if that had anything to do with it!" rejoined Antoinette, scornfully. "Any how, I am going to do it—if Miss Jessy will let me, I mean." "But that will take so long, and be so expensive," remarked Tessy; "and if it should not sell after all, you will lose your labor." "No, I sha'n't, because I should have the picture anyhow, and as for money, I have all my last quarter's allowance." "Then you can pay me the three shillings you borrowed of me the last time the peddler was here," said Tessy. "I want some money, and I haven't a bit." "I haven't any change," returned Antoinette, "and I don't want to break a bill for such a little thing as that." "You never do have any change, do you, Antoinette?" asked Belle Adair, innocently. Then, as Antoinette did not answer: "If I were you, Tessy, I wouldn't have any change either." "Well, she does get all my change away," said poor Tessy, half crying, as Antoinette walked away. "She is always saying, 'Oh, Tessy, just lend me a penny,' or 'Just let me have a sixpence, will you?' But if I ask her for anything, she never has it. It is just so with other things. She uses my pins, and needles, and hairpins, so that half the time I don't have any for myself, and then Miss Meeks scolds me, and says, 'Look at Antoinette, she is never unprovided.' Good reason why she isn't." "You must just learn to say no," said Belle Adair. "But it seems so mean to refuse such little things." "It is not so mean to refuse as it is to be sponging for little things," returned Belle, with some justice; "and that is what Antoinette is always doing. The other day, when she began her bead chain, she came to me to know if I had any thread. I told her I had, but did not offer to lend her any. Then she asked me for it straight out, and I told her I wanted my thread myself, and that Miss Jessy had plenty." "But you gave me a whole nice skein that very day," observed little Emma. "Yes, because I knew you would pay me, and I did not want you to get into disgrace for forgetting. You are not a sponge, though you are a heedless little puss, and want your ears pinched every day," and Belle suited the action to the word by administering a gentle pinch to the little rosy ear. "If she would only ask, I wouldn't care so much," said Tessy, "but she just helps herself to anything of mine she wants." "Well, I know what I would do if I were you," said Emma. "I wouldn't have any money." "What do you mean, Emma?" asked Tessy.