you think," he was saying, "that you treated Mr. Winston rather
rudely?"

"Rudely?" I repeated. "How has he treated _me_, I should like to know?"

"If you really would like to know," returned Dad, in that nice, calming
way he has which, even when you are ruffled up, makes you feel like a
kitty-cat being stroked, "I don't see, girlie dear, that you have so
very much to complain of. I've been having a chat with him, and if he
tells the truth, he appears to have served you pretty well. But perhaps
you will say he doesn't tell the truth as to that?"

"Oh, he _served_ me well enough--too well," said I. "But let's not speak
of him. I want to talk about you."

"There's plenty of time for that," said Dad. "I've come to stay--for a
while. Before we begin on me, let's thrash out this matter of Mr.
Winston."

"It deserves to be thrashed," I remarked, trying to laugh. But I've
heard things that sounded more like laughs than that. I hoped Dad didn't
notice it was wobbly.

"He's told me the whole story," went on Dad, "so perhaps I'm in a
position to judge better than you. Women are supposed to have no
abstract sense of justice, but I thought my girl was different. You hear
what Winston has got to say first, and then you can send him to the
right-about if you please."

"I don't see anything abstract in that. It's purely personal," said I.
"Mr. Winston can't expect me to hear him, or even to see him, again."

"He hopes, not expects, as a chap feels about going to heaven," said
Dad. "I'll fetch him, and you can get it over."

"Do nothing of the kind!" I exclaimed. "Let him stay with his mother."

"I guess I'm competent to entertain his mother for a few minutes,"
suggested Dad. "She's a very pleasant-looking lady."

I would have stopped him if I could; but when I saw he was determined, I
just shut my lips tight, and let him go. What I meant to do was to whisk
out as soon as his back was turned, so that when Mr. Winston should
come, he would find me gone. There was no danger he wouldn't understand
why; and a decided action like that on my part would settle everything
for the future.

But as I got to the door I saw him, not six feet distant. He must either
have been on the way to the summer-house when Dad left me, or else he'd
been waiting close by. Anyhow, evidently he and Dad couldn't have said
two words to each other; there hadn't been time; and there was Dad
marching off as if to find and "entertain" Lady Brighthelmston.