morning when she had been discovered in a raid on the refrigerator.

"Well I have some conscience and you haven't, or you wouldn't be
wanting to feed loin chops that cost forty-five cents a pound to a
cat," declared Winnie grimly.

"Sick animals need good food," maintained Sarah, swinging on the
screen door, a habit which invariably irritated Winnie.

"Go on out and play, do," she now advised Sarah. "How can I get my
work done with you buzzing around me like a fly! Well what do you
suppose struck the child that minute--" Winnie broke off in
amazement. Sarah had dashed around to the front of the house,
banging the screen door noisily behind her. Not curious enough to
speculate further, Winnie went on with her task of scrubbing the
table top already immaculate in its snowy purity.

Aunt Trudy was descending the front stairs leisurely an hour or two
later, pleasantly contemplating the nearness of the lunch hour, when
the door bell rang sharply. Really it sounded as though someone had
jabbed it viciously. Aunt Trudy approached the door with reproving
dignity.

"You're Miss Wright, aren't you?" said a rasped voice. "Well, I'm
Mrs. Anderson and I want to tell you that something has got to be
done to Sarah; that child is simply unbearable. She slapped the face
of my Ray this morning and the poor lamb came into the house crying
with pain. He's only four years old, and I think when a great girl
of nine takes to slapping babies' faces, she needs a sound whipping.
No, I won't come in, but I was determined you should know about it.
That child will end up in prison if her temper isn't curbed."

"No one ever spoke to me like that, Hugh," complained Aunt Trudy
tearfully to her nephew when he came in a few minutes later. "She
didn't give me a chance to say a word. I'm sure I don't approve of
Sarah slapping any one's face."

"Of course you don't," agreed the doctor soothingly. "Where is the
culprit? We'll see what she has to say for herself. Look here,
Sarah," he opened fire as that young person came up the porch steps
and into the hall, "Mrs. Anderson says you slapped Ray's face this
morning."

"Well?" inquired Sarah coolly.

"Did you?" said the doctor matching her briefness.

"I certainly did," Sarah assured him. "He is a bad, cruel boy and I
wish I had slapped him harder. He was stepping on poor baby ants!"

Aunt Trudy stared in astonishment, but something pathetic in Sarah's
defiant little figure touched Doctor Hugh. S