you think I'm going to
have a niece of mine--that I've brought up like my own--stopping out
all night? The lasses in my family and in your aunt's family, too,
have always been respectable--and you will be an' all, so long as I
have anything to do with you."

"I'm not going back to the Cottage to-night, though. I'm going to stop
here and sleep on the sofa," said Caroline defiantly.

"Hush, Carrie," pleaded Mrs. Creddle anxiously. "That isn't the way to
speak to your uncle, you know. He only means it for your good."

Mr. Creddle reached for his boots. "I won't have her stop out all
night," he repeated. "What would your mother ha' thought if you'd done
such a thing when you were in service?"

"Only I _aren't_ in service like aunt was," answered Caroline, getting
excited again. "Things are quite different from what they used to be
then. You can't judge by what went on when you were young, can he,
aunt?"

But Mrs. Creddle only shook her head; for somehow those words "stopped
out all night" came echoing on from her youth and she felt the force of
tradition at this moment no less than her husband. Always that phrase
had conveyed something derogatory concerning the girl about whom it was
used; and never would she or her sister Ellen have earned it while they
were in service for any earthly consideration. She was still faithful
to all the traditions of that skilled trade to which she had served a
long apprenticeship, and which is one of the most intricate and
difficult in the world. For a mass of oral knowledge handed down from
one to another--accuracy, intelligence, self-control, a very high
standard of personal chastity--these things formed only a part of the
equipment of Caroline's aunts when they were young, and such girls as
they formed an unorganized guild of service which can never be excelled
in England, whatever comes. They were the best maid-servants in the
world, and they did not know it. But they had a great pride in
themselves, if not in their fine calling, and Mrs. Creddle felt this
stir within her as she listened to her husband.

"Your uncle's right," she said. "Maybe other people will get to know
you lost your key, and they mightn't believe you. You wouldn't like it
to get about that you'd stopped out all night."

"I shouldn't care. I know I've done nothing wrong," said Caroline,
beginning to take off her hat.

"Now, my lass!" said Creddle grimly, as he finished lacing his boots,
"you're