"Oh, Aunt Anne, it's late already—"
"You'll change that dress, Sissy, or you won't go to school."
"I won't! It's too late. I'll be late. That means one credit off, and this month I'm going—" A remembrance of her lofty intentions came suddenly to Sissy. All the world seemed bent on compelling her to forswear herself.
"Cecilia!" commanded Miss Madigan.
Sissy stiffened.
"You've disturbed my reading enough this morning. If you say another word I'll—"
"Oh, Aunt Anne—"
"Go over to the wall, Cecilia, and stand with your back to me for five minutes."
With a fiendish light in her eye—a light of such desperate satisfaction as betokened one gladly driven to commit the unforgivable Sissy moved toward the sensitive-plant in the window.
"Not there! That poor plant seems to suffer sympathetically with your badness. Stand over by the bureau."