stop here for me, and--and O, I'll do _anything_ if only I may go!"

The frown on the woman's face deepened as Elizabeth stumbled on, and her
answer was swift and sharp.

"You are not going one step out of this house to-night--you can make up
your mind to that--not one step. I knew when I let you go off to that
camp that it would be just this way. Girls like you are never satisfied.
You want the earth. Here you've had a month--a whole month--off in the
country while I stood in that hot kitchen and did your work for you, and
now you are teasing to go stringing off again. You are _not going_."

"But," pleaded Elizabeth desperately, "I've worked so hard to-day--every
minute since five o'clock--and I washed and ironed Sadie's white dress
before supper. If there was any work I had to do it would be different.
And--and even servant girls have an afternoon and evening off every
week, and I never do. And I'm only asking now to go out one evening in a
month--just _one_!"

"There it is again!" Mrs. Page flung out. "Not this one evening, but an
evening every month; and if I agreed to that, next thing you'd be
wanting to go every week. I tell you--_no_. Now let that end it."

The tears welled up in Elizabeth's eyes as she turned slowly away; and
the sight of those tears awakened a tumult in another quarter.
Four-year-old Molly had been rocking her Teddy Bear to sleep when
Elizabeth came downstairs, and had listened, wide-eyed and wondering, to
all that passed. But tears in Elizabeth's eyes were too much. The Teddy
Bear tumbled unheeded to the floor as Molly rushed across to Elizabeth
and, clinging to her skirts, turned a small flushed face to her mother.

"Naughty, naughty mamma--make 'Lizbet' _ky_!" she cried out, stamping
her small foot angrily. "Molly love 'Lizbet' _hard_!"

Elizabeth caught up the child and turned to go, but a sharp command
stopped her. "Put that child down. I won't have you setting her against
her own mother!"

Elizabeth unclasped the little clinging arms and put the child down, but
Molly still clutched her dress, sobbing now and hiding her face from her
mother. The tinkle of the doorbell cut the tense silence that followed
Mrs. Page's last command. Sadie, an older girl, ran to open it, flashing
a triumphant glance at Elizabeth as she passed her.

As Sadie flung open the door, Elizabeth saw Olga on the step, and Olga's
quick eyes took in the scene--the frowning woman, Elizabeth's wet eyes
and droopin