othing without first seeing you...."

Cally Heth dropped his arm instantly, turned from him. She fled, not up
the grand stairway, but over the court for the doors, with the
protecting arms of the House of Heth beyond. And none of her other routs
from the family enemy had been quite like this one.

XVIII

Night-Thoughts on the Hardness of Religious Fellows,
compelling you to be Hard, too; Happier Things again, such as
Hugo, Europe, Trousseaux, etc.; concluding with a Letter from
Texas and a Little Vulgarian in a Red Hat.

The tireless William retraced the wet streets to the Dabney House in
ample time for Mrs. Heth, but the Chairman of the Finance Committee,
being in agreeable converse with fellow philanthropists, came home in
Mrs. Byrd's car instead, after all. Accordingly she did not say to
William, "Miss Carlisle decided not to come, Banks?"--which she liked to
call William for the English sound of it--and Banks, or William, did not
look respectfully surprised and say, "Yas'm, she came ..."

Arriving at home, the good little lady presently ascended to the third
floor, where she entered her daughter's room without knocking, according
to her wont. However, Carlisle had been ready for her for some time.

"You stayed," was mamma's arch conjecture, "to write a ream to Hugo,
dear fellow, I suppose?..."

"No, I went!" said Cally, now in the last stages of an evening toilette.
"Only when I got there, and peeped in, it all looked so dreary and
hopeless that my heart failed me, and I turned right around and came
back! Was it--"

"You did! How long were you there? There's a little too much powder on
your nose, my dear--there! Did you come upstairs?"

"Oh, no! I just slipped in for a moment or two and glanced about that
queer old court downstairs. Quaint and interesting, isn't it? How was
the meeting?"

"Most interesting and gratifying," said mamma, sinking into a rose-lined
chair. "We begin a noble work. You may go now, Flora. I am made a
governor, as well as chairman of the most important committee...."

She monologized for some time, in a rich vein of reminiscence and
autobiography, revealing among other things that she had rather broadly
hinted, to Mrs. Byrd and others, who was the anonymous donor of the
Settlement House; a certain wealthy New Yorker, to wit. However, it was
clear that she saw nothing amiss, nor did she say anything more germane
to her daughter's inner drama than,