by its frock, so that its legs and one remaining
arm dangled miserably in the air.

"It's only Jemima," said Pennie. She was vexed that Ethelwyn had seen
her at all, and there was something painful in having her held up to the
general scorn.

Ethelwyn began to giggle.

"Why do you keep a guy like that?" she said. "Why don't you burn it?"

"Well, so we do," replied Nancy, "very often. We burnt her only last
week."

"She was Joan of Arc," explained Pennie. "Only make-believe, you know.
Not real flames."

Ethelwyn stared. "What odd games you play!" she said. "I never heard
of them. But I know one thing: if she were mine I'd soon put her into
real flames."

The rest of the day went on in much the same way, and the children found
it more and more difficult to amuse their guest. It was astonishing to
find how very soon she tired of any game. "What shall we do now?" was
her constant cry; and it grew so tiresome that Nancy and the boys at
last went off to play together, and left her entirely to Pennie. And
this arrangement grew to be a settled thing, for it really was almost
impossible to play the usual games with Ethelwyn; there was no sort of
check on her overbearing ways, because "she was a visitor," and must do
as she liked. Now, she was a very poor hand at "making up," and did not
understand "Shipwrecks" or "Desert Islands" in the least; but this would
not have mattered if she had been willing to learn. Joined, however, to
complete ignorance on those subjects, she had a large amount of conceit,
and seemed to think she could do everything better than anyone else.
For instance, if they were going to play "Shipwrecks"--"I'll be
captain," she would exclaim at once. This had always been Ambrose's
part, and he rather prided himself on his knowledge of nautical affairs,
gathered from a wide acquaintance with Captain Marryat's stories. He
gave it up politely to Ethelwyn, however, and the game began. But in
two minutes she would say: "I'm tired of being captain; I'd rather be
Indian savages." Indian savages was being performed with great spirit
by Nancy, but the change was made, and the game went on, until Ethelwyn
cast an envious eye upon Dickie, who, with a small pail and broom, was
earnestly scrubbing at the carpet, under the impression that she was a
cabin-boy washing the deck of a ship. "_I_ should like to be
cabin-boy," said Ethelwyn.

But here the limit of endurance was reached, for Dickie grasped