she was going to
have delerium tremens at once.

Well, at first I thought the girls at school had played a Trick on me,
and a low down mean Trick at that. There are always those who think it
is funny to do that sort of thing, but they are the first to squeel when
anything is done to them. Once I put a small garter Snake in a girl's
muff, and it went up her sleave, which is nothing to some of the things
she had done to me. And you would have thought the School was on fire.

Anyhow, I said to myself that some Smarty was trying to get me into
trouble, and Hannah would run to the Familey, and they'd never beleive
me. All at once I saw all my cherished plans for the summer gone, and
me in the Country somewhere with Mademoiselle, and walking through the
pasture with a botany in one hand and a folding Cup in the other, in
case we found a spring a cow had not stepped in. Mademoiselle was
once my Governess, but has retired to private life, except in cases of
emergency.

I am naturaly very quick in mind. The Archibalds are all like that, and
when once we decide on a Course we stick to it through thick and
thin. But we do not lie. It is rediculous for Hannah to say I said the
cigarettes were mine. All I said was:

"I suppose you are going to tell the Familey. You'd better run, or
you'll burst."

"Oh, Miss Barbara, Miss Barbara!" she said. "And you so young to be so
wild!"

This was unjust, and I am one to resent injustice. I had returned home
with my mind fixed on serious Things, and now I was being told I was
wild.

"If I tell your mother she'll have a fit," Hannah said, evadently drawn
hither and thither by emotion. "Now see here, Miss Bab, you've just
come Home, and there was trouble at your last vacation that I'm like to
remember to my dieing day. You tell me how those things got there, like
a good girl, and I'll say nothing about them."

I am naturaly sweet in disposition, but to call me a good girl and
remind me of last Xmas holadays was too much. My natural firmness came
to the front.

"Certainly NOT," I said.

"You needn't stick your lip out at me, Miss Bab, that was only giving
you a chance, and forgetting my Duty to help you, not to mention
probably losing my place when the Familey finds out."

"Finds out what?"

"What you've been up to, the stage, and writing plays, and now liquor
and tobacco!"

Now I may be at fault in the Narative that follows. But I ask the school
if this was fair treatment. I had