Miss Kezia said coldly, "You are a very rude little girl." She turned to Denis. "Will you tell me where that dog is to sleep?"
"On the mat outside Nell's door."
"I will not have a dog rampaging over my house to work what mischief it likes while we sleep."
"She shall sleep on my bed," put in a very disdainful Atom.
"Certainly she shall not! Disgusting! Unhealthy! Spoiling my counterpanes!"
Nell looked at Miss Kezia, a weary wonder in her face. "She can sleep on the floor beside my bed," she said.
Miss Kezia hesitated; her eyes met those of the Atom—wide, defiant, indomitable in her small, obstinate face. In her ears echoed some words of Mrs. O'Brien's that Miss Kezia had privately labelled foolish. "Sheila Pat is delicate. Perhaps we have spoilt her a little. She is very strong-willed. She cannot be driven, but she can be led. Her feelings use her up—exhaust her." There had been a little sudden hopeless pause there; then—"I hope you will understand her."
Miss Kezia had not noticed the pause or the pleading note—a note vibrating with the struggle against the speaker's own conviction. She would not have understood, had she noticed, any more than she would ever understand the Atom of humanity who was defying her now.
"Very well," she said, with a glance of dislike at poor K.K.
Denis broke in with a solicitous air, and a tone reminiscent of the Blarney Stone:—