might expect no mercy from
her on the pitiful plea of relationship.

Bep's attitude was very Madigan; the only drawback to it was that it
left out of the reckoning the fact that she had a Madigan to deal with.

"Elizabeth Madigan," said the substitute, in the clear, high, formal
tone that, in itself, was sufficient to sever all bonds of kinship,
"where is your excuse for being late?"

Bep's blue eyes blinked. The impudence of Kate to talk that way to her!

"I ain't got any. Miss Walker never--"

"Miss Walker isn't teaching to-day," remarked the substitute, in the
patient tone which the enlightened have for dullness. "She is ill and I
am teacher here. Where is your excuse?"

Bep felt the silence grow around her. She saw the whole school drop its
mirth and its employments to watch this duel between Madigans.

"Why, you know very well, Kate Madigan--" she began hotly.

A sharp ring on the bell at the teacher's desk cut Bep's eloquence
short. "If you have anything to say to me, little girl, you will address
me as Miss Madigan."

The audacity of it struck Bep dumb. Call that slim girl Miss Madigan?
She'd like to see herself!

"You will go home, Elizabeth," the substitute continued, unconcernedly
making her way to the blackboard as though this life-and-death affair
were a mere incident in her many duties, "and bring me back a written
excuse for your tardiness."

Bep set her teeth. "You know I had to go an errand for Aunt Anne; you
saw me yourself," she muttered.

"A _written_ excuse, I said."

"I can't get any." Yet Bep rose. She felt the ground slipping from under
her.

"Then I am sorry to say," remarked the substitute, firmly, "that I shall
not be able to have you in my class to-day. Leave the room, Bessie....
Now, children, the first thing to do in subtraction--"

Bessie walked slowly up the aisle and toward the door. With the prospect
of a double disciplining, at home and at school, too, she dared not
rebel. Yet wrath smoldered within her. She came to where the substitute
stood at the board, calmly explaining the process of "borrowing," and
the resolution to regard her as an undeserving stranger was tempered by
Bep's desire to inflict an intimate, personal insult.

"I wouldn't be so afflicted as you," she growled under her breath, like
a small Mrs. Partington, misapplying her big word in her wrath, "for all
the world. And I'll get even!"

A gleam of quite unofficial laughter lit the substitute's eye.