The new-comer anathematized the officious servants of the Fort. Emmie stood looking on with growing consternation, as Val flung forth from the wardrobe to the middle of the room a shower of pinafores and petticoats, books and toys. They lay on the floor in an indiscriminate mass. What was this daring person about? Emmie stood shyly by the door, her face flushing with excitement. "I won't have my things mixed up with other peoples'!" Val announced, severely. Then, after a moment: "What are you standing there for?" "I--I don't know," responded Emmie. "Haven't you got any place of your own, where you belong?" Emmie looked bewildered, as well she might. "I've got a little rocking-chair down in gamma's room--used to be cousin Efan's." "Humph! rocking-chair's just the thing for _you!_ Why don't you go and sit in it?" Val was clearing out the bureau now at the other end of the room. It was Emmie's things this time that were being flung out with disdain. Val's harsh question, coupled with the moving spectacle of Emmie's best hat on the floor, brought ready tears to the soft brown eyes. "What you got in this?" demanded Val, shaking the rattling contents of a well tied-up box. "B'longs to cousin Efan. Gamma don't let us open it." Val untied the cord and revealed the forbidden spoil--marbles, a jack-knife, a broken whistle, and at the bottom a little drawing-book and a French grammar. "I'll take care of the marbles and the knife for cousin Ethan," said Val, "but you can have the other things," and she flung the treasured box to the opposite side of the room. The vandalism widened Emmie's trouble-clouded eyes. "Now my clothes are going in the bureau." Val was sorting and folding away her own belongings with a deftness characteristic of her thin little hands. Emmie watched the process tearfully. "And _my_ books and things like that go on this side," she went on, busily bringing order out of chaos. "Now, do you understand?" she said, sternly. "This half o' the room is mine. You can't _ever_ come here." The little girl at the door nodded, speechless. "Perhaps I'll help you afterwards to put your things away in the cupboard. First go down into the hall and bring me a piece of chalk out of the lift-up chair where they keep the brushes." "Chalk!" What _was_ she going to do? "Yes, chalk, goosie gander! Chalk! chalk!" Emmie fled. She had serious thoughts of never returning, but curiosity and the memory of her best hat sitting on the floor got the better of her fears. "That's right," said Val, on Emmie's reappearance. "Don't come over here!" she shouted. "_Stop_, I tell you!" She stamped violently as the child advanced, bewildered, holding out a piece of yellow crayon. "Didn't I just say this part of the room is mine?" "Y-yes." "Well, it _is_, just as much as if it had doors, which it ought to have, and locks and bolts. Don't ever come here till you get my permission. Understand?"