ld, a
knowledge that would have prolonged the sway of many a despot. He went
up-stairs in a rebellious mood which found expression in invectives
against womankind, its blindness, its wilfulness, its weak subservience
to usage. But when he appeared at the breakfast table, the
conventional shirt and trousers testified to the extent of Persis'
authority.

Little was said during the progress of the meal. Joel, saddened by the
lack of enthusiasm with which his great discovery had been received,
maintained a dignified silence. Persis, always moved to magnanimity by
triumph, forbore to emphasize her victory by obtruding on her brother's
reserve. Not till Joel had been fortified by a hearty breakfast and
had reached the advertising columns in his perusal of the weekly paper,
did she venture to touch upon another delicate theme.

"Joel, I wish you'd open the shutters of your bedroom and run up the
shade to the top. If ever a room needed airing and sunning, that's the
one. I'm going to give it a good cleaning as soon as I can take the
time, but this morning I'm too busy. Annabel Sinclair's coming for a
fitting at ten o'clock and that young Mis' Thompson at eleven. And I'm
as sure as I can be of anything but death and taxes, that Annabel will
be late."

Persis' apprehension would have taken on a keener edge, could she have
been favored at that moment with a glimpse of the patron of whose
punctuality she was in doubt. Ever since eight o'clock, Diantha
Sinclair had been opening the door of her mother's room at intervals of
five minutes and closing the same noiselessly, after a brief survey of
the figure on the bed. As the tenantry of field and forest apprehend
the approach of some natural cataclysm, by means of signs imperceptible
to man's grosser senses, so to Diantha the curve of her mother's
shoulder under the sheet, presaged a storm. Her uneasiness was due to
a horrid uncertainty as to which would anger her mother the more, to be
wakened too early or to be allowed to sleep too long.

By nine o'clock, the second of the alternatives seemed to Diantha the
more serious. She stole into her mother's room, and stationing herself
by the bed, spoke in the softest of voices; "Mama, your new dress--"

The opening showed a tact creditable to her years. After all, it is
one thing to be wakened by the crashing of a boarding-house breakfast
gong, and another to be roused by the music of a harp. Annabel opened
her eyes with