body, were resting on her knees. All she could think was
that one more lie would break the camel's back.

"Marta, please mayn't I come in?" rose the gentle voice on the other
side of the door. "Marta, don't you hear me? I asked if I might come
in."

"It's too childish and silly to remain silent any longer," thought
Marta. Tired nerves revived spasmodically under another call to action.
"Yes, certainly, mother--yes, do!" she said in a forced, metallic tone.

Mrs. Galland entered to find her daughter before the mirror brushing her
hair with hectic vigor. She did not take up the lantern, which Marta had
left in the middle of the floor, but seated herself. Her nice
deliberation in smoothing out a wrinkle of her skirt over her knees
indicated that she meant to stay a while. She folded her plump, white
hands; a faint touch of color came into her round, pink cheeks; a trace
of a smile knitted itself into the corners of her mouth. She was as she
had been--_J'y suis! J'y reste_!--when the captain of engineers had
pleaded with her at the outset of the war to leave the house. In the
reflection of the mirror Marta's glance caught hers, which was without
reproach or complaint, but very resolute.

"Do you like best to keep it all to yourself, Marta?" Mrs. Galland
inquired solicitously.

"What? Keep what?" asked Marta crossly.

"Even if you have been all the way around the world, it might be easier
if you allowed me to help you a little," pursued Mrs. Galland.

"Help! Help about what?" said Marta.

That reply, as Marta knew now as an expert in deceit, was a mistake. She
was hedging and petulant when she ought to have whirled around gayly and
kissed her mother on the cheek, while laughing at such solemnity over a
trip of exploration through the tunnel. Mrs. Galland had caught her
prevaricating. Not since Marta was a little girl of seven had she
"fibbed" to her mother; and on that memorable and ethically instructive
occasion her mother had regarded her in this same calm fashion.

"At all events," said Mrs. Galland, "I could help you a little if you
would let me comb your hair. You are combing in a most unsystematic way,
I must say. Systematic, gentle combing is very good for headaches and--"

There was a twinkle in Mrs. Galland's eye that was not exactly humor; a
persistent twinkle that seemed to shine out of every part of the mirror.
Her curiosity had come to stay; there was no escaping it. Marta brought
her brush down with