or using the expression I did. The matter I wished to
bring to Miss Madigan's attention--and to yours, now that you are
here--concerns one of your daughters. I should have come to tell you of
it before, as was my duty, as I would wish any mother to do for me were
it my daughter; but I have been busy helping the Misses Bryne-Stivers
and Professor Trask with this concert for to-night. This must be my
apology for the delay. For speaking--for telling you what I have to
tell, no mother could apologize."

"H'm!" Madigan cleared his throat threateningly, and out in the
sage-brush Sissy shook with apprehension. She knew that preliminary
bugle-call to battle.

"I assure you, my dear Mrs. Pemberton, we can have only the kindest
feelings for any one who will take an interest in those motherless--"

"Let Mrs. Pemberton go on, Anne," interrupted Madigan, harshly. "Just
what is it, ma'am? Out with it."

Mrs. Pemberton rose, rustling her heavy silks.

"Merely, Mr. Madigan, that with my own eyes I saw your daughter take
part in a vulgar kissing game--the only occurrence of any kind that
marred the perfect propriety of my son's birthday party."

There was a long silence inside. Sissy, without, her heart beating so
loud that she was afraid it might drown all other sounds, heard, despite
it, Aunt Anne's gasp of horror, the tinkle of the jet on Mrs.
Pemberton's heavy gown, the squeaking of her father's paint-spotted
slippers as he shifted his weight.

Finally it came. "That ox!" exclaimed Madigan, in a rage.

Mrs. Pemberton moved in majesty toward the door. "My son," she said
slowly, "chivalrously tries to take the blame from her and insists that
he proposed the game himself. But I know Crosby to be incapable of such
a thing."

"H'm! Yes. So do I," assented Madigan.

Miss Madigan turned to her brother, and in a voice that suggested long
years of martyrdom, said: "You will send her to the convent now,
Francis? You positively must now. I really admire you for the way you
have discharged a most unpleasant duty, Mrs. Pemberton. For years I've
insisted that Irene must--"

"Irene? Yes, if it had been Irene, one could expect it," remarked Mrs.
Pemberton, funereally.

"But it wasn't--it couldn't be--"

"It was Cecilia." Mrs. Pemberton's grief-stricken tones conveyed all the
disappointment she felt.

Cecilia, on her quaking knees, now peering through the window, saw a
quick change come over her father's dread countenance. It smoot