ross her forehead in
smooth, satiny bands of an evenness and rigidity which no other hair,
save Miss Eliza's, could possibly have.

She pushed her shiny glasses to the end of her sharp, little nose and
over them surveyed the disheveled maiden before her.

"What are you doing?" she asked crisply.

Arethusa turned her glowing face to her aunt, but without pausing in
her dance. "Oh, this glorious storm, Aunt 'Liza! I ..."

Miss Eliza waved her hand. "You need not answer. I can see quite
plainly, for myself, it is something foolish. You should not be out
here. Come on into the house, Arethusa. Your Aunt 'Titia and I and your
Aunt 'Senath wish to talk to you. In the sitting-room."

"Oh, not right now, Aunt 'Liza, please! Can't I ..."

"No, you can't. Come on into the house. How many times do you have to
be told a thing, Arethusa? You know very well how much your Aunt 'Titia
objects to your running around in a storm in this outlandish way!"

"Oh, but Aunt 'Liza, it's not storming yet. Just thundering a little,"
pleaded Arethusa. "Please let me stay out until it really begins.
Please! I'll come right in then. I promise. Please!"

"_Arethusa!_"

And this effectually nipped in the bud Arethusa's faint little effort
to have her own way.

But it would have been nipped effectually sooner or later, for no one
ever dreamed of standing up for long against Miss Eliza, or of being so
rash as to contemplate such as actual disobedience. Although her
stature was that of a child and her figure slight in proportion, she
concentrated as much energy and leadership in those four feet eleven
inches, as if the figures had been reversed.

Blish, the negro boy who did all the hardest and heaviest work around
the house, inside and out, and who stood six feet three in his
stockings, hung his head abjectly as before an offended Goliath when
his diminutive mistress scolded him for a task she considered
slightingly performed. Blish had an honest and ingrained terror of Miss
Eliza's wrath and the lashings she could give with her tongue: and he
was not alone among those on the Farm in this terror.

So Arethusa abandoned her dance and, with her hair still hanging,
meekly followed Miss Eliza towards the front door.

"We have had a letter from your father," began Miss Eliza, as this
strange Indian-file procession of very tiny old lady and very tall
young girl proceeded back along the flagged walk on which it had issued
forth in distinct secti