nd everybody swore
something awful. And she wouldn't eat anything but ice-cream at the
table, and one meal she had five dishes."

Eveley and Eileen had listened in fascinated silence during this recital
of his sister's wrongdoing. But Betty stuck a fat thumb between rosy
lips, and drooped her eyes demurely behind her curling lashes.

"Did--you do all that, Betty?" demanded Eileen at last, very faintly.

"I did more than that," she said proudly. "I put the pink lady's bedroom
slippers in a man's traveling bag, and they haven't found it out yet. And
I slipped Billy's wriggly lizard down the black lady's neck, and she said
a naughty word. And--"

"And what did Billy do?"

Betty's lips curled with scorn. "Billy? He didn't do anything. He's too
good. He don't ever do anything."

Billy advanced with the threatening hunch of his shoulders and clench of
the brown fists.

"You say, 'Excuse me for them words,'" he said in a low voice. "And say
it quick."

Betty jerked her finger from her mouth and mumbled rapidly in a voice of
frightened nervousness, "Excuse me for them words, please excuse me for
them words." And then, as her brother's shoulders relaxed, she sidled up
to him, rubbing herself affectionately against his arm, and whispered,
"Aw, Billy, I was only joking. You ain't mad at me, are you?"

"Let's go," said Eileen. "I feel--faint."

"Sticking pins is good for faintness," said Betty hopefully. "I did it to
Aunt Agnes twice when she nearly fainted, and she came to right away."

"And she gave Betty a good whipping."

"Yes, she did, and I only did it to cure her," said Betty in an aggrieved
voice.

"Let's go fast," begged Eileen. "Take your handkerchief, Billy, and see
if you can wipe a little of the dirt and blood off your face."

"He mustn't do that," interrupted Betty promptly. "Handkerchiefs is full
of germs, and if he gets the germs in his scratches he gets blood poison
and dies. You got to wait till you get home, Billy, and then lie on your
back on Aunt Eileen's bed, and she'll take clean gauze and soak 'em off
in cold water. If you haven't got any gauze handy you can use mine, but
you'd better buy some. Billy uses as much as a dollar's worth of gauze in
no time."

Eileen put her hand over her face, and turned away. The children
followed, looking about them in frank interest and pleasure.

"Is that a palm tree?" asked Betty. "Billy says God never made 'em grow
like that. He says men just tie those