ore names?"

"I won't call her names--names don't si'nify, names don't kill
people."

"And you'll go and beg her pardon now?"

"What's that?"

"You'll say you are sorry that you called her names."

"Would she let me out of this woom, then? and could I do just what I
liked my own self?"

"I expect so; I expect she is really sorry that she had to be hard on
you to-day; but you see she has got a different way of bringing up
children from our own mother."

"Please, Iris, we won't talk much of our own mother--it makes me lumpy
in the trof," said Diana, with a little gulp. "I'll beg her pardon, if
it pleases her. I don't care--what's words? I'll go at once, and,
Iris, mind me that I'm like Diana. She was a bwave lady and she
shotted lots of people."

"Well, then, come along, Di; you'll be allowed to come to dinner if
you beg Aunt Jane's pardon."

Di gave her hand to Iris, who took her upstairs. Here Iris washed her
little sister's face and hands and brushed out her thick black hair,
and kissed her on her rosebud lips, and then said:

"There is nothing I would not do, Di, to be a real little mother to
you."

"All wight," answered Diana; "you just mind me now and then that I is
called after the bwave lady what lived long, long ago. Is that the
second gong? I'se desp'ate hungy. Let's wun downstairs, p'ease, Iris."

Diana entered the dining room with her face all aglow with smiles, the
rich color back again in her cheeks, and her black eyes dancing. Even
Mr. Dolman gave a gasp of relief when he saw her.

Even Mrs. Dolman felt a slight degree of satisfaction. She did not
intend to be hard on the children--in her heart of hearts she was
quite resolved to make them not only good, but also happy.

"Well, my dear little girl," she said, drawing Diana to her side, "and
so you are sorry for what you said?"

"Awfu' sossy," answered Diana, in a cheerful voice.

"Then you beg my pardon, and you won't be naughty again?"

"I begs yous pardon, Aunt Jane," said Diana. She looked very
attentively up and down her relation's figure as she spoke.

"Poor Aunt Jane, she's awfu' stout," murmured Diana, under her breath.
"I must get a good sharp arrow--oh, yes! words is nothing."

Mrs. Dolman drew out a chair near herself.

"You shall sit near me, Diana, and I will help you to your dinner,"
she said. "I hope in future you will really try to be a very good
little girl."

Diana made no reply to this, but when her aunt piled h