er voice, and the results were blasting, though
the occasion was happier. Indeed, the intention of Juliana had been
wholly amiable, for it was at the picnic of the Methodist Sunday-school.

She came upon the twins in a fair dell, where they watched other
children at a game, and she took very civil notice of them, saying, "How
do you do, young gentlemen?" in deep, thrilling tones, and though they
had been doing very well until that moment, neither of the twins had
recovered strength to say so. To them she had been more formidable than
a schoolteacher. Their throats had closed upon all utterance. Now as she
faced them, a dozen feet away, even though the words "Patricia Whipple"
applied to but one of their number, the twins took the challenge to
themselves and quailed. They knew that deep and terrible voice menaced
themselves as well as the late Ben Blunt--for that mere street urchin,
blown upon by the winds of desolation, had shrivelled and passed. In his
place drooped a girl in absurd boy's clothes, her hair messily cut off,
smoking something she plainly did not wish to smoke. The stricken lily
of vice drooped upon its stem.

One by one the three heads turned to regard the orator. How had she
contrived that noiseless approach? How had she found them at all in this
seclusion? The heads having turned to regard her, turned back and bowed
in stony glares at the rich Whipple-nourished turf. They felt her come
toward them; her shadow from the high sun blended with theirs. And again
the voice, that fearsome organ on which she managed such dread effects:

"Patricia Whipple, what does this mean?"

She confronted them, a spare, grim figure, tall, authoritative, seeming
to be old as Time itself. How were they to know that Juliana was still
youthful, even attired youthfully, though by no means frivolously, or
that her heart was gentle? She might, indeed, have danced to them as
Columbine, and her voice would still have struck them with terror. She
brought her deepest tones to those simple words, "What does this mean?"
All at once it seemed to them that something had been meant, something
absurd, monstrous, lawless, deserving a ghastly punishment.

The late Ben Blunt squirmed and bored a heel desperately into the turf
above a Whipple whose troubles had ceased in 1828. She made a rough
noise in her throat, but it was not informing. The Wilbur twin,
forgetting his own plight, glanced warm encouragement to her.

"I guess she's got a