“And the doctor’ll give nasty medicine,” declared Thomas, “or maybe he’ll cut out your appendix!”

“Potter won’t let him.”

“Potter!  Huh!—­He’ll cut out your appendix, and charge your papa a thousand dollars.  Oh, you bet, them that’s naughty always pays the piper.”

Gwendolyn got to her feet.  “I won’t pay the piper,” she retorted.  “I’m going to give all my money to the hand-organ man—­all of it.  I like him,” tauntingly.  “But I hate—­you.”

“We hate a sneak,” observed Miss Royle, blandly.

The little figure went rigid.  “And I hate you,” she cried shrilly.  Then buried her face in her hands.

“Gwen-do-lyn’!” It was a solemn and horrified warning.

Gwendolyn turned and walked slowly toward the window-seat.  Her breast was heaving.

“Come back and sit in this chair,” bade the governess.

Gwendolyn paused, but did not turn.

“Shall I fetch you?”

“Can’t I even look out of the window?” burst forth Gwendolyn.  “Oh, you—­you—­you—­” (she yearned to say Snake-in-the—­grass!—­yet dared not) “you mean! mean!” Her voice rose to a scream.

Miss Royle stood up.  “I see that you want to go to bed,” she declared.

The torrent of Gwendolyn’s anger and resentment surged and broke bounds.  She pivoted, arms tossing, face aflame.  There were those wicked words across the river that each night burned themselves upon the dark.  She had never pronounced them aloud before; but—­

“Starch!” she shrilled, stamping a foot, “Villa sites!  Borax! Shirts!”

Miss Royle gave Thomas a worried stare.  He, in turn, fixed her with a look of alarm.  So much Gwendolyn saw before she flung herself down again, sobbing aloud, but tearlessly, her cheek upon the rug.

She heard Miss Royle rustle toward the school-room; heard Thomas close the door leading into the hall.  There were times—­the nursery had seen a few—­when the trio found it well to let her severely alone.

Now only a hoarse lamenting broke the quiet.

It was an hour later when some one tapped on the school-room door—­Miss French, doubtless, since it was her allotted time.  The lamentations swelled then—­and grew fainter only when the last foot-fall died away on the stairs.  Then Gwendolyn slept.

Awakening, she lay and watched out through the upper panes of the front window.  Across the square of serene blue framed by curtains and casing, small clouds were drifting—­clouds dazzlingly white.  She pretended the clouds were fat, snowy sheep that were passing one by one.

Thus had snowy flocks crossed above the trout-stream.  Oh? where was that stream? the glade through which it flowed? the shingled cottage among the trees?

With all her heart Gwendolyn wished she were a butterfly.

Suddenly she sat up.  She had found her way alone to the library.  Why not put on hat and coat and go to Johnnie Blake’s?