a different relation toward each other than ordinarily exists between
most mothers and daughters. In the first place Mrs. Wharton was so very
little older than her children that in the days in the cottage when they
had lived and worked for one another, they had seemed more like three
devoted and intimate friends. Of course the two girls had always
understood that when a serious question was to be decided their mother
remained the court of the last decision. However, in those years few
serious questions had ever arisen beyond the finding of sufficient
money for their food and clothes and occasional good times. So that
there had been nothing to disturb the perfection of their attitude
toward one another until Mrs. O'Neill's marriage to her former employer,
Mr. Wharton. And then there is no doubt that Polly for a time had been
difficult. Naturally she was glad for her mother's sake that she had the
new love and wealth and position; nevertheless she was homesick for
their old life and its intimacy and in her heart half sorry that her own
dream of some day bringing fortune and ease to her mother and Mollie was
now of so little account. And then all too soon, before matters had
really become adjusted between the two families, had followed her own
act of insurbordination and deception and her mother's mandate.

Of course Polly had bowed before it and had even understood that it was
both right and just. She had been happy enough in these last two years,
in spite of missing Betty Ashton almost every hour, and had come to like
and admire her stepfather immensely. Nevertheless there had remained a
slight shadow between herself and her mother, a misapprehension so
intangible that Polly herself did not realize it, although Mrs. Wharton
did.

"I suppose you are not sleepy, dear, because you are sitting here
thinking that never in the whole world was there ever a mother so narrow
and so dictatorial as I am," Mrs. Wharton began. "Oh, I have been in
bed, but I have been lying awake for the past hour looking at myself
with Polly's eyes."

Polly frowned, shaking her head, yet her mother went on without
appearing to notice her.

"I wonder if you think that I have no realization of the wonderful
opportunity I have just made you refuse. Do you think, Polly, that I
don't appreciate what it must mean to a girl like you to have made a
friend of a great woman like Margaret Adams? And to have her so desire
your companionship that she has aske