know what she's talking about."

"Certainly, he can't stay," reiterated Mrs. Bishop. "If I have to
put him in the train myself to-day, and pack him off to London."

"But who'll meet him?" asked Dora.

"Oh, of course, I suppose I shall telegraph to her. I've got her
address."

"But that's a terrible waste of money," Elsie objected. "If you wrote
now and sent him by a later train, wouldn't she get it in time?"

"It can be charged to her bill," said Mrs. Bishop.

"And are you going to send Maurie alone, all the way up to London?"
Sally exclaimed, forced at last to break her silence.

"Of course," said Mrs. Bishop, with surprise. "You don't think I'm
going to afford him the luxury of a travelling companion, do you?"

"You may not; but I shall."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"I shall go with him myself."

"If you do--if you associate yourself with those disreputable people
at all--you shall never enter this house again."

Her voice thrilled with the terror of her threat.

"I can look forward to the prospect of that with no great reluctance,"
said Sally quietly.

"Oh!" Mrs. Bishop exclaimed. "Oh!" Then her daughters wisely led her
from the room.

"I've left my egg unfinished," she said brokenly as she departed.

They fondly believed that Sally could not face the ominous threat
of her mother until they beheld her trunks ready packed in the hall.
Then Elsie came to her.

"Sally," she said, with the voice of one who carries out implacable
orders, "do you realize that mother meant what she said?"

"Realize it? I suppose so. I haven't thought about it."

"You don't mean that. You must have thought about it. Do you realize
that you'll never see her again?"

"Yes, quite. But not particularly because she says so. I'd never come
back again if she were to beg me to. It means a lot to you perhaps,
it means nothing to me."

Elsie looked at her in horrified alarm, as at one sinking into the
nethermost hell.

"I could never have believed you'd say anything like that," she
murmured under her breath. "Can't you see that you're breaking the
fifth commandment?"

"Can't mother see," retorted Sally, with vehemence, "that she's
breaking all the unwritten commandments of charity--love your
enemies--do good to them that hate you? I'd break the fifth
commandment fifty times rather than come back and live with all of
you again. You're narrow, you're cruel, you're hard, and you save
yourselves from your own consciences