straight
through the windows--hers and ours--and hit the Bishop plumb in the
face.

My, if I could only have laughed! The Bishop, the dear, prim little
Bishop in his own carriage, with his arm about a young woman in red and
chinchilla, offering her a bank-note, and Mrs. Dowager Diamonds, her
eyes popping out of her head at the sight, and she one of the lady
pillars of his church--oh, Tom! it took all of this to make that poor
innocent next to me realize how he looked in her eyes.

But you see it was over in a minute. The carriage wheels were
unlocked, and the blue coupe went whirling away, and we in the
plum-cushioned carriage followed slowly.

I decided that I'd had enough. Now and here in the middle of all these
carriages was a bully good time and place for me to get away. I turned
to the Bishop. He was blushing like a boy. I blushed, too. Yes, I
did, Tom Dorgan, but it was because I was bursting with laughter.

"Oh, dear!" I exclaimed in sudden dismay. "You're not my father."

"No--no, my dear, I--I'm not," he stammered, his face purple now with
embarrassment. "I was just trying to tell you, you poor little girl,
of your mistake and planning a way to help you, when--"

He made a gesture of despair toward the side where the coupe had been.

I covered my face with my hands, and shrinking over into the corner, I
cried:

"Let me out! let me out! You're not my father. Oh, let me out!"

"Why, certainly, child. But I'm old enough, surely, to be, and I
wish--I wish I were."

"You do!"

The dignity and tenderness and courtesy in his voice sort of sobered
me. But all at once I remembered the face of Mrs. Dowager Diamonds,
and I understood.

"Oh, because of her," I said, smiling and pointing to the side where
the coupe had been.

My, but it was a rotten bad move! I ought to have been strapped for
it. Oh, Tom, Tom, it takes more'n a red coat with chinchilla to make a
black-hearted thing like me into the girl he thought I was.

He stiffened and sat up like a prim little school-boy, his soft eyes
hurt like a dog's that's been wounded.

I won't tell you what I did then. No, I won't. And you won't
understand, but just that minute I cared more for what he thought of me
than whether I got to the Correction or anywhere else.

It made us friends in a minute, and when he stopped the carriage to let
me out, my hand was still in his. But I wouldn't go. I'd made up my
mind to see him out of his part