a flash, an old emotion of childhood had filled her
breast; an old emotion that seemed only to have gathered strength in the
intervening years,--that blind, unthinking and dependent love of the
infant for its mother.

Should she go back and throw herself at the wonderful woman's knees?
Should she set out her plea for forgiveness in the folds of her mother's
dress as she had done as a baby? No, Wilmott would be there,--Wilmott
and everything besides! Moreover,--she looked in the glass,--her face
was distraught, her ears flared, her eyes still smarted horribly. Even
if Wilmott were dismissed as before, the girl would guess something.

Slowly she proceeded with her dressing, and, as she did so, a certain
vague delicacy of feeling, a sort of secret reverence for her brave
youth-loving mother downstairs, kept her from glancing too frequently in
the glass. The contrast now, instead of elating her, simply accentuated
her reminiscence of guilt. The very speed with which she adjusted her
hair and made it "presentable," as her mother had expressed it, brought
back the cruel memory of what had happened only a few minutes
previously.

In being thus affected by Mrs. Delarayne's able and perfectly relentless
handling of a difficult situation; in feeling her love for her mother
intensified backwards, so to speak, to the degree it had attained in
infancy, as the result of the incident, Leonetta showed not only that
she was worthy of her incomparable mother, but also that she had
survived less unimpaired, than some might have thought, the questionable
blessings of a finishing education.

Mrs. Delarayne who, without being truculently triumphant, was
nevertheless mildly conscious of having scored a valuable and highly
desirable point, repaired to the drawing-room twenty minutes later in a
mood admirably suited to giving her guests a warm and hearty welcome.

Cleopatra was the first to join her. Each woman honestly thought that
she had rarely seen the other look quite so beautiful, and the comments
that were exchanged were as sincere as they were flattering.

Mrs. Delarayne was too loyal to betray one sister to the other, so she
did not refer to the incident in her bedroom. Occasionally, however,
thoughts of it would make her glance a little anxiously in the direction
of the door, and as she did so, she fervently hoped that the lesson she
had administered to her younger daughter had not been too severe.

"I wonder what Baby can be