ps you think no indignity towards me
worth resentment?"

"I do not answer that, Cecil; you will think better of those words
another time," said Raymond, sternly. "But when you want your cause
taken up, you have to remember that whatever the annoyance, you
brought it upon yourself and her, by your own extraordinary
proceeding towards my mother--I will not say towards myself. I will
try to smooth matters. I think the De Lanceys must have acted
foolishly; but the first step ought to be an expression of regret
for such conduct towards my mother."

"I cannot express regret. I ought to have been told if there were
things forbidden."

"Must I forbid your playing Punch and Judy, or dancing on the tight-
rope?" cried Raymond, exasperated.

Cecil bit her lip, and treated the exclamation with the silent
dignity of a deeply injured female; and thus they reached home, when
Raymond said, "Come to your senses, Cecil and apologize to my
mother. You can explain that you did not know the extent of your
powers."

"Certainly not. They all plotted against me, and I am the person to
whom apology is due."

Wherewith she marched up-stairs, leaving Raymond, horribly
perplexed, to repair at once to his mother's room, where Frank still
was; but after replying about his success in the examination, the
younger brother retreated, preferring that his story should be told
by his mother; but she had not so much as entered on it when Raymond
demanded what had so much disturbed Cecil.

"I was afraid she would be vexed," said Mrs. Poynsett; "but we were
in a difficulty. We thought she hardly knew what she had been led
into, and that as she had invited her ladies, it would do less harm
to change the character of the party than to try to get it given
up."

"I have no doubt you did the best you could," said Raymond, speaking
with more like censure of his mother than he had ever done since the
hot days of his love for Camilla Vivian; "and you could have had
nothing to do with the personalities that seem to have been the
sting."

Mrs. Poynsett, true boy-lover that she was, had been informed of the
success of Tom's naughtiness--not indeed till after it was over,
when there was nothing to be done but to shake her head and laugh;
and now she explained so that her son came to a better understanding
of what had happened.

As to the extinguishing Women's Rights in child's play, he saw that
it had been a wise manoeuvre of his mother, to spare a