aureole about them. The four of
us stared at each other in silence for a space, while the attic-room, with
its cobwebs reeled--the sun rose, and sank, like a floundering ship, and
Mrs. Handsomebody resembling, in my fancy, a hungry spider, in curl papers,
considered which victim was ripest for slaughter.

"You--and you--and you--" she gobbled. "Oh, to think of it! No place safe!
What you need is a _strong_ man. _We_ shall see! The very windows--burst
from their bolts!" She slammed the casement and secured it, Angel and The
Seraph darting from her path.

"Even a dead woman's clothes--to make a scarecrow of!" She pounced--I hid
my face while she did it, but I heard a sinister rustling and the snap of a
trunk lid. It was over. "Bide the time."

Ignominiously she herded us down the stairs; The Seraph making only one
step at a time, led the way. Far down the drab vista of the back stairs
that ended in the scullery, Mary Ellen's red, round face was seen for a
moment, like a second rising sun, but vanished as suddenly as it had
appeared, at a shout from Mrs. Handsomebody.

We were in the schoolroom now, placed before her in a row, as was her wont
in times of retribution. Seated behind her desk she wore her purple
dressing gown with magisterial dignity; the wart upon her chin quivered as
she prepared to speak.

"Now, David," she said, rapping Angel smartly on the head, "can you say
anything in explanation of this outrage upon my property? Hold your head up
and toe out, please."

Angel looked at his hands. "Nuffin' to explain," he said sulkily. "Just
went an' did it."

"Oh I thought so," said our governess. "It was just one of these seemingly
irresistible impulses that have so often proved disastrous for all
concerned. If your father knew--" she bit off the words as though they had
a pleasant, if acrid taste--"if your poor father knew of your criminal
proclivities, he would be a _crushed_ man. A _crushed man_."

The Seraph was staring at her chin.

Then--"I have one too," he said gently.

"One _what_?" Her tone should have warned him. "One wart," he went on, with
easy modesty. "It's just a little one. It can't wiggle--like yours--but
it's gwowing nicely. Would you care to see it?"

Mrs. Handsomebody affected not to hear him. She stared sombrely at Angel
and me, but I believe The Seraph sealed our fate, for, after a moment's
deliberation, she said curtly; "I shall have to beat you for this."

She gave us six apiece,