ishing up the silver toilet bottles, the beauties. You're one of
those women who pet a home, and it shows, I can tell you. You don't see
many homes like this, do you, dad,--so ladylike and brier-rosy?"

She leaned smilingly across the table as she addressed her father,
offering him not the ingratiating and seductive smile which he was
accustomed to see women--his wife among the rest--employ when they
wished to placate him. Kate's was the bright smile of a comradely fellow
creature who asked him to play a straight game. It made him take fresh
stock of his girl. He noted her high oval brow around which the dark
hair clustered engagingly; her flexible, rather large mouth, with lips
well but not seductively arched, and her clear skin with its uniform
tinting. Such beauty as she had, and it was far from negligible, would
endure. She was quite five feet ten inches, he estimated, with a good
chest development and capable shoulders. Her gestures were free and
suggestive of strength, and her long body had the grace of flexibility
and perfect unconsciousness. All of this was good; but what of the
spirit that looked out of her eyes? It was a glance to which the man was
not accustomed--feminine yet unafraid, beautiful but not related to sex.
The physician was not able to analyze it, though where women were
concerned he was a merciless analyst. Gratified, yet unaccountably
disturbed, he turned to his wife.

"Martha has forgotten to light up the parlor," he said testily. "Can't
you impress on her that she's to have the room ready for us when we've
finished inhere?"

"She's so excited over Kate's coming home," said Mrs. Barrington with a
placatory smile. "Perhaps you'll light up to-night, Frederick."

"No, I won't. I began work at five this morning and I've been going all
day. It's up to you and Martha to run the house."

"The truth is," said Mrs. Barrington, "neither Martha nor I can reach
the gasolier."

Dr. Barrington had the effect of pouncing on this statement.

"That's what's the matter, then," he said. "You forgot to get the
tapers. I heard Martha telling you last night that they were out."

A flush spread over Mrs. Barrington's delicate face as she cast about
her for the usual subterfuge and failed to find it. In that moment Kate
realized that it had been a long programme of subterfuges with her
mother--subterfuges designed to protect her from the onslaughts of the
irritable man who dominated her.

"I'll light the ga