drive."

"I hardly feel like going out--as yet.... Sit down."

Cally sat in the chair prescribed by a gesture. The eyes of the two
women met for the first time since they had parted in tears. And Cally,
seeing her mother's bereaved face, had to crush down a sudden almost
overpowering impulse toward explanation, reconciliation at any cost.
However, she did crush it down. There was nothing to explain, as mamma
had pointed out in the midnight.

Mrs. Heth cleared her throat, though her voice seemed sufficiently
strong.

"I understood from Flora that you were getting up this morning," said
she, "so this seemed the appropriate time for me to see you, and learn
something about your plans, regarding your future."

"My plans?"

"As you have so completely overthrown your parents' plans for you, I can
only assume that you have others of your own."

Cally sat with her hands folded in her lap. A look of curious
wistfulness flitted across her face.

"No, I haven't any special plans."

"I'm surprised to hear you say so. You surely do not expect to go on
this way the rest of your natural life, do you?"

"I don't understand, mamma. Go on in what way?"

"In this way. In occupying the central position in my home, in allowing
your parents to sacrifice their lives to you, in receiving lavish
evidences of regard and affection which you evidently have not the
slightest wish to return."

There was a considerable silence.

"I have a sort of plan there," said the girl, slowly. "I don't want
you--and papa--to go on--giving me everything. I want," she said, with a
slight tremor, "to take--to be just as little expense as I can
after this."

"Oh!... Then what you want to do is to withdraw altogether from
society--and go to work to earn your own living?"

Carlisle raised her eyes. "Is that what you want me to do, mamma?"

"It is not a question of what _I_ want in this house any longer, it
seems.... I am pointing out to you, Carlisle, that the independence of
action you have lately taken upon yourself is a serious matter, to be
looked at from more than one side. It is not becoming," said Mrs. Heth,
watching her daughter's face closely, "to bite the hand that feeds you."

To this the girl had no reply. Beneath her mother's somewhat vivid
metaphor, she perceived a truth, and that truth the tragic weakness of
her position. But she did not know now that large books had been written
about this weakness, and many more would be....