worry, Mother,” said Valancy, lightly but quite respectfully. “It isn’t likely I’ll do anything very terrible. But I mean to have a little fun.”

“Fun!” Mrs. Frederick uttered the word as if Valancy had said she was going to have a little tuberculosis.

Olive, sent by her mother to see if she had any influence over Valancy, came away with flushed cheeks and angry eyes. She told her mother that nothing could be done with Valancy. After she, Olive, had talked to her just like a sister, tenderly and wisely, all Valancy had said, narrowing her funny eyes to mere slips, was, “I don’t show my gums when I laugh.”

“More as if she were talking to herself than to me. Indeed, Mother, all the time I was