ight.
In her last place Miss Bella did them every week with milk-and-water to
make them shine!"

She had not the least idea that there was anything to be ashamed of in
her action; on the contrary, she was full of pride in her own
cleverness. But it was impossible to allow such an occasion to pass,
even on Christmas evening, when discipline is necessarily relaxed. Mrs
Trevor's face was an eloquent mingling of tenderness and distress as she
said--

"But did it never strike you, Pam dear, that these things were not your
own to sell? That you had no right to sell them?"

"They were no use. You said to father, `That coat is too disgraceful to
be worn,' and Betty said the blouse mortified her pride, and Jill made
fun of her umbrella because it was three and eleven-pence, and the wires
bulged out. She said, `I can't think why it is that I always lose silk
ones, and I can't get rid of this wretched thing, do what I will!' I
thought,"--Pam's voice sounded a tremulous note of disappointment--"I
thought you would all be pleased with me for clearing them away."

"It would have been different, dear, if you had asked our permission,
though we all have to put up with shabby things sometimes. As it was,
it was both wrong and dishonest to take things which belonged to other
people, and sell them without permission."

"But I sold my own too! My blue coat and hat, because you said yourself
they didn't suit me, and you couldn't bear to see them on. I heard you
speaking to Betty, and saying those very words. I thought you'd be
pleased if you never did see them again!"

Mrs Trevor gasped in consternation.

"Oh, Pam, Pam, what am I to say to you? This is worse than I imagined!
Your blue coat--and it was quite good still! I can't possibly accept a
present obtained in such a way!"

She cast an appealing glance at her husband, who had been sitting
covering his mouth with his hand, and trying in vain to subdue the
twinkle in his eyes as he listened to Pam's extraordinary confession.
Now he looked at the child's frightened, shrinking face, and said
kindly--

"I think Pam and I will have a quiet talk together while you adjourn to
the drawing-room. She did not mean to do wrong, and I am sure she will
never offend again in the same way when she understands things in their
right light."

So Mrs Trevor and the elder children went to the drawing-room, and, ten
minutes later, a subdued little Pam crept up to her mother's side,