l
him everything.'

'No, I don't, my dear,' Leonora denied the charge like a girl. 'A week
last night I heard Fred Ryley talking to you at your window. And I have
said nothing.'

Ethel flushed hotly at this disclosure.

'Then why say anything now?' she murmured, half daunted and half daring.

'Your father must know. I ought to have told him before. But I have been
wondering how best to act.'

'What's the matter with Fred, mother?' Ethel demanded, with a catch in
her throat.

'That isn't the point, Ethel. Your father has distinctly said that he
won't permit any'--she stopped because she could not bring herself to
say the words; and then continued: 'If he had the slightest suspicion
that there was anything between _you_ and Fred Ryley he would never have
allowed you to go to the works at all.'

'Allowed me to go! I like that, mother! As if I wanted to go to the
works! I simply hate the place--father knows that. And yet--and yet----'
She almost wept.

'Your father must be obeyed,' Leonora stated simply.

'Suppose Fred _is_ poor,' Ethel ran on, recovering herself. 'Perhaps he
won't be poor always. And perhaps we shan't be rich always. The things
that people are saying----' She hesitated, afraid to proceed.

'What do you mean, dear?'

'Well!' the girl exclaimed, and then gave a brief account of the Gardner
incident.

'My child,' was Leonora's placid comment, 'you ought to know that
Florence Gardner will say anything when she is in a temper. She is the
worst gossip in Bursley. I only hope Milly wasn't rude. And really this
has got nothing to do with what we are talking about.'

'Mother!' Ethel cried hysterically, 'why are you always so calm? Just
imagine yourself in my place--with Fred. You say I'm a woman, and I am,
I am, though you don't think so, truly. Just imagine----No, you can't!
You've forgotten all that sort of thing, mother.' She burst into gushing
tears at last. 'Father can kill me if he likes! I don't care!'

She fled out of the room.

'So I've forgotten, have I!' Leonora said to herself, smiling faintly,
as she sat alone at the table waiting for John.

She was not at all hurt by Ethel's impassioned taunt, but rather amused,
indulgently amused, that the girl should have so misread her. She felt
more maternal, protective, and tender towards Ethel than she had ever
felt since the first year of Ethel's existence. She seemed perfectly to
comprehend, and she nobly excused, the sudden outbreak of vi