"I think you're very hard on a fellow," muttered Max, flushing with mortification and anger as he turned to obey.
Lulu, coming down the stairs, had heard and seen it all. She stood still for a moment at the foot of the stairway, giving Mr. Dinsmore a look that, had it been a dagger, would have stabbed him to the heart, but which he did not see; then, just as the tea-bell rang, turned and began the ascent again.
"Why are you going back, Lulu? did you not hear the supper bell?" asked Mr. Dinsmore.
"Yes, sir," she answered, facing him again with flashing eyes, "but if my brother is not to go to the table neither will I."
"Oh, very well," he said; "you certainly do not deserve a seat there after such a speech as that. Go to your own room and stay there until you find yourself in a more amiable and respectful mood."
It was exactly what she had intended to do, but because he ordered it, it instantly became the thing she did not want to do.
However, she went into her room, and closing the door after her, not too gently, said aloud with a stamp of her foot, "Hateful old tyrant!" then walked on into Violet's dressing-room, where her sister still was.
Gracie had lain down upon a sofa and wept herself to sleep, but the supper bell had waked her, and she was crying again. Catching sight of Lulu's flushed, angry face, she asked what was the matter.
"I wish we could go away from these people and never, never come back again!" cried Lulu in her vehement way.
"I don't," said Gracie. "I love mamma and Grandma Elsie, and Grandma Rose, and Grandpa Dinsmore, too, and——"