ears.

"Why, dearie dear," cried her mother, "whatever is the matter?"

"It's wicked and hateful," sobbed the girl, "but---- Oh, mamma, I
_hate_ Susan! She was along, and Sam hardly noticed me, and he's
coming here this evening to call."

"But you'll be at Sinclairs'!" exclaimed Mrs. Warham.

"Not Susan," sobbed Ruth. "He wants to see only her."

The members of the Second Presbyterian Church, of which Fanny
Warham was about the most exemplary and assiduous female member,
would hardly have recognized the face encircled by that triple
row of curl-papered locks, shinily plastered with quince-seed
liquor. She was at woman's second critical age, and the strange
emotions working in her mind--of whose disorder no one had an
inkling--were upon the surface now. She ventured this freedom of
facial expression because her daughter's face was hid. She did
not speak. She laid a tender defending hand for an instant upon
her daughter's shoulder--like the caress of love and
encouragement the lioness gives her cub as she is about to give
battle for it. Then she left the room. She did not know what to
do, but she knew she must and would do something.

CHAPTER III

THE telephone was downstairs, in the rear end of the hall which
divided the lower floor into two equal parts. But hardly had
Mrs. Warham given the Sinclairs' number to the exchange girl
when Ruth called from the head of the stairs:

"What're you doing there, mamma?"

"I'll tell Mrs. Sinclair you're sick and can't come. Then I'll
send Susan in your place."

"Don't!" cried Ruth, in an agitated, angry voice. "Ring off--quick!"

"Now, Ruth, let me----"

"Ring off!" ordered Ruth. "You mustn't do that. You'll have the
whole town talking about how I'm throwing myself at Sam's
head--and that I'm jealous of Susan."

Mrs. Warham said, "Never mind" into the telephone sender and
hung up the receiver. She was frightened, but not convinced.
Hers was a slow, old-fashioned mind, and to it the scheme it had
worked out seemed a model of skillful duplicity. But Ruth, of
the younger and subtler generation, realized instantly how
transparent the thing was. Mrs. Warham was abashed but not
angered by her daughter's curt contempt.

"It's the only way I can think of," said she. "And I still
don't see----"

"Of course you don't," cut in Ruth, ruffled by the perilously
narrow escape from being the laughing stock of the town. "People
aren't as big fools as th