With a mocking laugh Lenora replied, “Pshaw!  I gave that up the first time I ever saw him, for of course he thinks me a second edition of Mrs. Carter, minus any improvements.  But he’s mistaken; I’m not half as bad as I seem.  I’m only what you’ve made me.”

Mrs. Hamilton turned away, thinking that if her daughter could so easily give up Walter Hamilton, she would not.  She was resolved upon an alliance between him and Lenora.  And who ever knew her to fail in what she undertook?

She had wrung from her husband the confession that “he believed there was a sort of childish affection between Walter and Kate Kirby, though ’twas doubtful whether it ever amounted to anything.”  She had also learned that he was rather averse to the match, and though Lenora had not yet been named as a substitute for Kate, she strove in many ways to impress her husband with a sense of her daughter’s superior abilities, at the same time taking pains to mortify Margaret by setting Lenora above her.

For this, however, Margaret cared but little, and it was only when her mother ill-treated Willie, which she frequently did, that her spirit was fully roused.

At Mrs. Hamilton’s first marriage she had been presented with a handsome glass pitcher, which she of course greatly prized.  One day it stood upon the stand in her room, where Willie was also playing with some spools which Lenora had found and arranged for him.  Malta, the pet kitten, was amusing herself by running after the spools, and when at last Willie, becoming tired, laid them on the stand, she sprang toward them, upsetting the pitcher, which was broken in a dozen pieces.  On hearing the crash Mrs. Hamilton hastened toward the room, where the sight of her favorite pitcher in fragments greatly enraged her.  Thinking, of course, that Willie had done it, she rudely seized him by the arm, administered a cuff or so, and then dragged him toward the china closet.

As soon as Willie could regain his breath he screamed, “Oh ma, don’t shut me up; I’ll be good; I didn’t do it, certain true; kittie knocked it off.”

“None of your lies,” said Mrs. Hamilton.  “It’s likely kittie knocked it off!”

Lenora, who had seen the whole, and knew that what Willie said was true, was about coming to the rescue, when looking up, she saw Margaret, with dilated nostrils and eyes flashing fire watching the proceedings of her stepmother.

“He’s safe,” thought Lenora; “I’ll let Mag fire the first gun, and then I’ll bring up the rear.”

Margaret had never known Willie to tell a lie, and had no reason for thinking he had done so in this instance.  Besides, the blows her mother gave him exasperated her, and she stepped forward just as Mrs. Hamilton was about pushing him into the closet.  So engrossed was that lady that she heard not Margaret’s approach until a firm hand was laid upon her shoulder while Willie was violently wrested from her grasp, and ere she could recover from her astonishment she herself was pushed into the closet, the door of which was closed and locked against her.