u want to be disgraced before them?"

The little girl pondered that question seriously. She could not
understand why telling the truth should disgrace anybody. She loved
the Bishop and fairly idolized her big brother Hugh. Her Aunt Muriel
was more angry with the child than ever before in her short life and
Millikins fully realized this fact.

"I'm sorry, Auntie Prin. I'm sorrier than ever was. I hate them two
should think I was bad and I wish--I wish you wouldn't not for to tell
'em. I isn't bad, you only think so. 'Cause it's the truthiest truth,
I _did_ see him. He had--"

Miss Tross-Kingdon held up a warning hand and her face was sterner
than any pupil had ever seen it. Such would have quailed before it,
but Millikins-Pillikins quailed not at all. Rising from the carpet,
where she had been sitting, she planted her sturdy legs apart, folded
her arms behind her and unflinchingly regarded her aunt. The midget's
defiant attitude made Dorothy turn her head to hide a smile, while the
little girl reiterated:

"I did see him. I have to tell the truth all times. You said so and I
have to mind. I did see that debbil. He lives in this house. When my
brother Hugh comes, he shall go with me to hunt which room he lives
in, and the Bishop shall preach at him the goodest and hardest he can.
This isn't no badness, dear, angry Auntie Prin; it is the truthiest
truth and when you see him, too, you'll believe it. If Hugh would
come--"

Miss Tross-Kingdon leaned back in her chair and threw out her hand in
a gesture of despair. What made her darling so incorrigible?

"Oh! I wish he would come, I certainly wish he would! This thing is
beyond me or anything in my experience. I almost begin to believe that
Bible days have returned and you are possessed of the evil spirit."

Millikins-Pillikins returned to her play in supreme indifference. She
knew what she knew. Couldn't a body believe one's own eyes? Didn't
the _chef_ often say that "Seeing is believing," when the scullery
maid stole the raisins and he found them in her pocket? She couldn't
help Auntie Prin being stupid; and--

"Oh, oh, oh! Hughie's come! Hughie's come! Oh! you darling brother
boy, let's go and seek that debbil!"

The youth who entered and into whose arms his little sister had
sprung, held her away from him and gasped. Then answered merrily:

"That gentleman doesn't belong in good society, kiddie. It's not good
form even to mention him. I'd rather go the other wa