“If I don’t?”
“I can make it very hot for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll come and have a talk with your aunt. There!”
“Oh, Nancy. What about?”
“Such an interesting story, darling! All about our fun that night when you burnt your arm—all about our gaiety, and the fireworks, and your stealing away as you did, and your stealing back as you did. Oh! I shall have a jolly story to tell; and I will tell it, too. She’ll turn me away, and tell me she’ll never see me any more; but what of that? She’s done that already. I will have my fun; you will have your punishment. That’s fair enough, isn’t it? You don’t desert Nancy King for nothing, remember that, Pauline, so you had better say at once that you will come. Now, my love, I think that is about all.”
Nancy’s face was very red. She was feeling thoroughly angry. Pauline’s manner annoyed her past description. She really imagined herself to be extremely kind and good-natured to Pauline, and could not endure the little girl taking her present high stand.
“I must be going now,” she said.
She gave Pauline a nod which was scarcely friendly, but was, at the same time, very determined, and was about to run home, when Pauline called her.
“Don’t go for a minute, Nancy. There’s something else. Have you brought me back Aunt Sophia’s thimble?”