I suppose you think I don't know that it was you who should have been sent away from Miss Richards's, and not Kitty! But I do know--I have known it all the time, though Kitty wouldn't tell me--and I think that you and Lettice Kitson are the two meanest, wickedest girls in all the world to let Kitty bear the blame all this time and never clear her.

But after this--" "Betty!" Aunt Pike's voice rose almost to a scream to get above the torrent of Betty's indignation.

"How _dare_ you speak to Anna so! How _dare_ you say such shocking things! You dreadful, naughty child, you are in such a passion you don't know what you are saying, and you are making Anna quite ill! Look at her, poor child!--Anna dear, come to me; you look almost fainting, and I really don't wonder." Anna was certainly ghastly white, and trembling uncontrollably, but as much at the sight of her mother as from Betty's fiery onslaught.
"Yes--I do feel faint," she gasped, but she was able to walk quickly to her mother's side, and to lead her at a brisk step away from that smouldering heap on the ground.
"Poor child, I will take you to your room.

You must lie down and keep very quiet for a time .-- Elizabeth, follow us, please, and wait for me in the dining-room.

I will come and speak to you there when I have seen to Anna.