ere of sullen resentment.
Her father gave her a brief, abstracted nod, in response to her
greeting, and went on with his bacon and his Daily Mail; her
stepmother's forbidding expression checked any attempt at conversation.
The children stared at her with a kind of malevolent curiosity; they
knew that a storm had been brewing for her the night before, and longed
to know just how thoroughly she had "caught it." Eliza, bringing
in singed and belated toast, looked at her with pity, tinged with
admiration. Cook and she had been awakened at midnight by what was
evidently, in the words of Cook, "a perfickly 'orrible bust-up," and
knowing Cecilia to have been its object, Eliza looked at her as one may
look who expects to see the scars of battle. Finding none, but receiving
instead a cheerful smile, she returned to the kitchen, and reported to
Cook that Miss Cecilia was "nuffink less than a neroine."

But as that day and the next wore on, Cecilia found it difficult to be
cheerful. That she was in disgrace was very evident, Mrs. Rainham said
no more about her sins of the night before; instead, she showed her
displeasure by a kind of cold rudeness that gave a subtle insult to her
smallest remark. The children were manifestly delighted. Cecilia was
more or less in the position of a beetle on a pin, and theirs was the
precious opportunity of seeing her wriggle. Wherefore they adopted
their mother's tone, openly defied her, and turned school-hours into a
pandemonium.

Cecilia at last gave up the attempt to keep order. She opened her desk
and took out her knitting.

"Well, this is all very pleasant," she said, calmly. "You seem
determined to do no work at all, so I can only hope that in time you
will get tired of being idle. I can't attempt to teach you any more. I
am quite ready, however, if you bring your lessons to me."

"You'll get into a nice row from the Mater," jeered Wilfred.

"Very possibly. She may even punish me by finding another governess,"
said Cecilia, with a twinkle. "However that may be, I do not feel
compelled to talk to such rude little children as you any more. When
you are able to speak politely you may come to me for anything you
want; until then, I shall not answer you." She bent her attention to the
mysteries of heel-turning.

The children were taken aback. To pinprick with rudeness a victim who
answered back was entertaining; but there was small fun in baiting
anybody who sat silently knitting with a ha