"Oh, Miss Appleby's coming to see you," said Val, with overacted indifference. "She'll tell you everything that Emmie hasn't told you already." "I don't choose to ask Miss Appleby for details that I ought to hear from you." Val looked at Emmie's curiosity-lighted face and kept silence. Her grandmother understood. "Run out and play, child; you sit too much in the house," she said to the younger child. "I've got nobody to play with," came from Emmie, not budging. "Then go and get me some jonquils and narcissuses." "I've hurt my finger." "Then take a book and sit in the porch." "I've read all the books on the juvenile shelf." "Leave the room!" Val's heart swelled up in gratitude. It was considerate of her judge not to hold the court of inquiry before Emmie. "Well," said Val, plunging into the unhappy business the moment the door was closed, "you know how we hate and despise--I mean how we don't like Miss Beach." "Humph! I dare say Miss Beach doesn't like all her pupils." "I should think she didn't! She hates us!" "I don't want to hear such strong expressions. I've nothing to do with the other girls; but it's a bad lookout for you if you haven't earned the respect of an estimable woman like Miss Beach." "You wouldn't call her that if she gave _you_ unfair marks, and said and _looked_ spiteful things at you." "Looked! What nonsense are you talking?" "Well, she"--Val dropped her eyes and crimsoned--"she laughed at my new gymnastic dress." There was a pause. "It _is_ unlike the others." "Beyond a doubt. Far too good for the purpose. That broché came from Baltima'. Your aunt Valeria never wore it but once. It was as good as new." "Well, all the other girls wear blue serge, but they never laughed. Miss Beach _did_. Perhaps she didn't mean me to see, but I did." "Humph! Well?" "Well, she invents new marches--in-and-out figures, you know--and she only does them once very quickly, and makes me lead off afterwards, and blames me if there's the least mistake. So I--I--just thought the next time she invented something new I'd see if I--I--couldn't make her do it slower. So--well, I collected parlor-matches for a week." Mrs. Gano's quick movement said, "_That's_ where the matches have gone." "And I cut off their heads, and I gave some to--three of my friends, and I had a lot myself; and as we marched we threw 'em little by little under Miss Beach's ugly fat--I mean under her feet." "I'm amazed at you--simply amazed!" Mrs. Gano's eyebrows had shot up to the middle of her forehead. Val studied for the hundredth time the hairless bony arches above the piercing eyes, and the strange look of the patches of eyebrow sitting up on her forehead in that amazed fashion. "Well, she _did_ do that new march very slow, stopping and looking round surprised when the matches exploded, and at last she gave up marching altogether, and kind of exploded herself. She _was_ angry, and red too--_purple_, all over her ugly podgy--over her face."