“Think,” resumed the governess, inflecting her tones eloquently, “of the fortune he spends on your dresses, and your pony, and your beautiful car!  And he hires all of us”—­she swept a gesture—­“to wait on you, you naughty girl, and try to make a little lady out of you—­”

“I hate ladies!” cried Gwendolyn, rapping her heels by way of emphasis.

“Tale-bearing is vulgar,” asserted Miss Royle.

“Next year I’m going to day-school like Johnnie Blake!”

“Oh, hush your nonsense!” commanded Thomas, irritably.

Miss Royle glanced up at him.  “That will do,” she snapped.

He bridled up.  “What the little imp needs is a good paddlin’,” he declared.

“Well, you have nothing to do with the disciplining of the child.  That is my business.”

“It’s what she needs, all the same.  The very idear of her bawlin’ all the mornin’ at the top of her lungs—­”

“I did not at the top of my lungs,” contradicted Gwendolyn.  “I cried with my mouth.”

“—­So’s the whole house can hear,” continued Thomas; “and beatin’ about the floor.  It’s clear shameful, I say, and enough to give a sensitive person the nerves.  As I remarked to Jane only—–­”

“You remark too many things to Jane,” interposed the governess, curtly.

Now he sobered.  “I hope you ain’t displeased with me,” he ventured.

“Ain’t displeased?” repeated Miss Royle, more than ever fretful.  “Oh, Thomas, do stop murdering the King’s English!”

At that Gwendolyn sat up, shook back her hair, and raised a startled face to the row of toys in the glass-fronted case.  Murdering the King’s English!  Had he dared to harm her soldier with the scarlet coat?

“I was urgin’ your betterin’, too, Miss Royle,” reminded Thomas, gently.  “I says to Jane, I says—­”

The soldier was in his place, safe.  Relieved, Gwendolyn straightened out once more on her back.

“—­’The whole lot of us ought to be paid higher wages than we’re gettin’ for it’s a real trial to have to be under the same roof with such a provokin’—­’”

Miss Royle interrupted by vigorously bobbing her head.  “Oh, that I have to make my living in this way!” she exclaimed, voice deep with mournfulness.  “I’d rather wash dishes!  I’d rather scrub floors!  I’d rather star-r-ve!”

Something in the vehemence, or in the cadence, of Miss Royle’s declaration again gave Gwendolyn that sense of triumph.  With a sudden curling up of her small nose, she giggled.

Miss Royle whirled with a rustle of silk skirts.  “Gwendolyn,” she said threateningly, “if you’re going to act like that, I shall know there’s something the matter with you, and I shall certainly call a doctor.”

Gwendolyn lay very still.  As Thomas glanced down at her, smirking exultantly, her smile went, and the pink of wrath once more surged into her face.