e of what you're doing?"

"Certainly not! Since I haven't the faintest idea what you think I'm
'doing,' naturally I don't care whether you approve of it or not. All
I'd like, if you please, is to be alone. I'm not giving a tea here, this
afternoon, if you'll permit me to mention it!"

Fanny's gaze wavered; she began to blink; then suddenly she sank into a
chair and wept silently, but with a terrible desolation.

"Oh, for the Lord's sake!" he moaned. "What in the world is wrong with
you?"

"You're always picking on me," she quavered wretchedly, her voice
indistinct with the wetness that bubbled into it from her tears. "You
do--you always pick on me! You've always done it--always--ever since you
were a little boy! Whenever anything goes wrong with you, you take it
out on me! You do! You always--"

George flung to heaven a gesture of despair; it seemed to him the last
straw that Fanny should have chosen this particular time to come and sob
in his room over his mistreatment of her!

"Oh, my Lord!" he whispered; then, with a great effort, addressed her
in a reasonable tone: "Look here, Aunt Fanny; I don't see what you're
making all this fuss about. Of course I know I've teased you sometimes,
but--"

"Teased' me?" she wailed. "Teased' me! Oh, it does seem too hard,
sometimes--this mean old life of mine does seem too hard! I don't think
I can stand it! Honestly, I don't think I can! I came in here just to
show you I sympathized with you--just to say something pleasant to you,
and you treat me as if I were--oh, no, you wouldn't treat a servant
the way you treat me! You wouldn't treat anybody in the world like this
except old Fanny! 'Old Fanny' you say. 'It's nobody but old Fanny,
so I'll kick her--nobody will resent it. I'll kick her all I
want to!' You do! That's how you think of me-I know it! And you're
right: I haven't got anything in the world, since my brother
died--nobody--nothing--nothing!"

"Oh my Lord!" George groaned.

Fanny spread out her small, soaked handkerchief, and shook it in the
air to dry it a little, crying as damply and as wretchedly during this
operation' as before--a sight which gave George a curious shock to add
to his other agitations, it seemed so strange. "I ought not to have
come," she went on, "because I might have known it would only give you
an excuse to pick on me again! I'm sorry enough I came, I can tell you!
I didn't mean to speak of it again to you, at all; and I wouldn't have,
bu