opened it to find Mrs. Brown and Molly rolling
on the bed, overcome with laughter.

"Oh, oh, oh! She has taken at least forty-five years off of my age,"
giggled Mrs. Brown like a veritable boarding-school miss. "I have never
in my life seen such a born boss as the redoubtable Mrs. Pace! Did you
see her undo my belt and take off my skirt? I could not have felt more
like a child if my waist had been a pinafore instead of a respectable
black silk. And as for Molly, she was treated as though she were just
about old enough to go into rompers." And they all went off into peals
of laughter.

"Well, now is the time to take a stand or you will never be able to,"
said Judy. "I defied her from the first and she lets me alone
wonderfully."

"Yes, I noticed how you withstood her authority when you were sent to
your room!" grinned Molly, as she got back into the clothes that had
been forcibly removed only five minutes before. "I see you have sneaked
in our letters and I, for one, am going to read mine, and then if we can
get down stairs without the dragon devouring us, let's take a walk. We
shall have plenty of time before dinner."

They accordingly read their letters and crept down stairs and out on the
street for a breath of air and a stroll in the Luxembourg Gardens. It
was too late to try to see the pictures in the Gallery of the Luxembourg
and, after all, they had the winter before them. And now that she was
out on the street, having escaped the dragon, Mrs. Brown confessed to
feeling a little mite tired, so they sat down on a bench in the Gardens
and watched the children play.

"Poor Mrs. Brown, of course you are tired! That is the most irritating
thing about Mrs. Pace: she is always right. 'It is best to rest after a
trip whether you feel tired or not, as the reaction after a journey is
obliged to come, and you pay up for it to-morrow if you do not rest
to-day'," and Judy imitated Mrs. Pace to the life.

"Well, you may be sure, my dear girls, that wild horses will not drag
the fact from me in the presence of the dragon, even if I am weary unto
death. Does she coerce all her boarders as she did me, Judy?"

"Most of them are completely under her dominion, finding it easiest and
best to take the course of least resistance. Some few rebel, but they
usually end by moving on. If you stay at the Pension Pace and wish to
"_requiescat in pace_," you do as she says to do. I have defied her from
the first and now I am rated as an