ness, ready to
go at the first opportunity, now that the real purpose of the interview
was discharged. But suddenly she perceived a new pointedness in her
mother's biting summaries; and she turned, with a slightly startled look
in her eyes.

Her mother returned the gaze with savage sarcasm.

"Oh! You never heard of the Labor Commissioner and his hired
character-assassin, I suppose! Never--"

"Yes, but I didn't know any of that was on my account."

"No, no, indeed! You thought it was just a little whim of your father's
to keep his factory in a condition that's been a scandal in the
community. Fighting off legislation--bribing inspectors--just his little
bits of eccentric self-indulgence. You thought that ten thousand dollars
I gave to the Settlement grew on a tree, I suppose. You--"

"Mamma," said Cally, in a strained voice, "what on earth are you talking
about? I want to understand. What did that money you gave to the
Settlement have to do--"

"Don't you _know_ he needed it for his business?" cried mamma,
advancing menacingly. "I tell you he'd put it by to spend it on the
Works this fall, and stop these attacks on him. And why did I have to
take it from him, but on _your_ account, miss?--to try to clear the
family name from the scandal you brought upon us--"

"_What_?"

"A scandal," continued mamma, in a crescendo sweep, "that all but undid
my lifework for the family's position, and that may yet cost your father
his presidency at the bank."

The good lady easily saw that she had struck the right punitive note at
last. Indeed, the question now, Cally's peculiarities being considered,
was whether she had not struck it rather too hard. The girl's face had
suddenly become the color of paper. The intense concentration of her
gaze was painful in its way, slightly disconcerting to mamma.

"Do you mean," said Cally, in quite a shaky voice--"do you say that
papa--meant to improve the Works _this fall_--and that you--that I--"

"I mean exactly what I say," said Mrs. Heth, resolutely. "And I say it's
high time you were beginning to understand your position in this family,
as a guide to your strange behavior. Do you suppose your father enjoys
being under attack all the time? Haven't you heard him say a hundred
times, that it was bad business to let things go at the Works? Where
were you six years ago when he said we'd have to economize and put up a
new building, and I prevented him for your sake, arguing that you were