t
at the end of the wharf flashed full on the descending passengers, and
among them Charity caught sight of Julia Hawes, her white feather askew,
and the face under it flushed with coarse laughter. As she stepped from
the gang-plank she stopped short, her dark-ringed eyes darting malice.

"Hullo, Charity Royall!" she called out; and then, looking back over
her shoulder: "Didn't I tell you it was a family party? Here's grandpa's
little daughter come to take him home!"

A snigger ran through the group; and then, towering above them, and
steadying himself by the hand-rail in a desperate effort at erectness,
Mr. Royall stepped stiffly ashore. Like the young men of the party, he
wore a secret society emblem in the buttonhole of his black frock-coat.
His head was covered by a new Panama hat, and his narrow black tie,
half undone, dangled down on his rumpled shirt-front. His face, a livid
brown, with red blotches of anger and lips sunken in like an old man's,
was a lamentable ruin in the searching glare.

He was just behind Julia Hawes, and had one hand on her arm; but as he
left the gang-plank he freed himself, and moved a step or two away
from his companions. He had seen Charity at once, and his glance passed
slowly from her to Harney, whose arm was still about her. He stood
staring at them, and trying to master the senile quiver of his lips;
then he drew himself up with the tremulous majesty of drunkenness, and
stretched out his arm.

"You whore--you damn--bare-headed whore, you!" he enunciated slowly.

There was a scream of tipsy laughter from the party, and Charity
involuntarily put her hands to her head. She remembered that her hat had
fallen from her lap when she jumped up to leave the stand; and suddenly
she had a vision of herself, hatless, dishevelled, with a man's arm
about her, confronting that drunken crew, headed by her guardian's
pitiable figure. The picture filled her with shame. She had known since
childhood about Mr. Royall's "habits": had seen him, as she went up to
bed, sitting morosely in his office, a bottle at his elbow; or coming
home, heavy and quarrelsome, from his business expeditions to Hepburn
or Springfield; but the idea of his associating himself publicly with a
band of disreputable girls and bar-room loafers was new and dreadful to
her.

"Oh----" she said in a gasp of misery; and releasing herself from
Harney's arm she went straight up to Mr. Royall.

"You come home with me--you come rig