openly pitied her for being what is known as "tied down so," you were at the point where Alice became infuriated.
No one could guess that the loud and angry roar of Sara which reached the parlor with a shocking volume of sound, rang up the curtain on a new phase of the domestic drama. At this noise Alice said:
"Excuse me. I must see what the matter is."
She found Sara, in a highly satisfactory temper. Sara was shaking her red-gold curls and stamping her feet. She was screaming, too.
"Darling angel," thought her mother. "Scream while you can and stamp your feet while you can. Soon enough you'll be grown up and have to be polite. Soon enough you will have to swallow your indignation."
Robert sat with protecting arms around Jamie, who in faithful imitation of his serious-minded Scotch nurse, waggled his finger at his screaming sister, saying self-righteously:
"No, no; naughty!"
Robert told his mother the cause of the trouble in a shocked voice:
"She almost slapped the baby!"
"Poor darling!" cried Alice, embracing not the baby but Sara. Sara, grateful for sympathy, wept quietly into Alice's shoulder.
"Bad girl," Jamie remarked solemnly.
"Yes, she is," cried Robert.
"Both of you boys stop nagging Sara," commanded Alice. She soothed her daughter. The tense atmosphere of the nursery relaxed. Alice made no attempt to inquire into the cause of trouble.
"I'll take Sara with me," said she smiling at her two sons as if it were a favor for them to lend Sara
