ie thought in confused anger, tea would
have been safely over by this time; if Pa were not there glowering she
might have chattered at her ease with Rodney, no tea hour would have
been too long. As it was, she was self-conscious and constrained. The
clock struck six. Really it WAS late.

The toast came in; Sally came in demurely at her mother's side. She had
rushed out of the shadows to join her mother at the gate, much to Mrs.
Monroe's surprise. Conversation, subdued but general, ensued. Martie
walked boldly with Rodney to the gate, at twenty minutes past six, and
they stood there, laughing and talking, for another ten minutes.

When she went in, it was to face unpleasantness. Her mother, with her
bonnet strings dangling, was helping Lydia hastily to remove signs of
the recent tea party. Sally was in the kitchen; Len reading opposite
his father.

"Come here a minute, Martie," her father called as I the girl hesitated
in the hallway. Martie came in and eyed him. "I would like to know what
circumstances led to young Parker's being here this afternoon?" he
asked.

"Why--we were walking, and I--I suppose I asked him, Pa."

"You SUPPOSE you asked him?"

"Well--I DID ask him."

"Oh, you DID ask him; that's different. You had spoken to your mother
about it?"

"No." Martie swallowed. "No," she said again nervously. There was a
silence while her father eyed her coldly.

"Then you ask whom you like to the house, do you? Is that the idea? You
upset your mother's and your sister's arrangement entirely at your own
pleasure?" he suggested presently.

"I didn't think it was so much to ask a person to have a cup of tea!"
Martie stammered, with a desperate attempt at self-defense. She felt
tears pressing against her eyes. Lydia would have been meek, Sally
would have been meek, but Martie's anger was her nearest weapon. It
angered her father in turn.

"Well, will you kindly remember in future that your ideas of what to
ask, and what not to ask, are not the ideas by which this house is
governed?" Malcolm asked magnificently.

"Yes, sir." Martie stirred as if to turn and go.

"One moment," Malcolm said discontentedly. "You thoroughly understand
me, do you?"

"Yes, sir." Martie's eyes met Len's discreetly raised over the edge of
his book and full of reproachful interest. She went into the kitchen.

The spell of a nervous silence which had held the dining room was
broken. Mrs. Monroe and Lydia talked in low tones as they