o my mother's. Was it not so?"

"If you had gone to mother's, would you have expected to upset the
entire schedule of family affairs?" he demanded.

In reply she rose and stood drumming lightly with her fingers on the
table-top.

"'Daughter am I in my mother's house, but Mistress in mine own,'" she
quoted.

Hamilton Burton took several turns back and forth across the floor. The
whole situation was surprising and intolerable. Never had son or brother
been more lavish in waving the magician's wand for the pleasure of his
family, but never had any other member forgotten for an instant the
obedience they owed to his paramount genius. Men who fought him, he
could crush, and did crush ruthlessly and with no afterthought, but his
own sister, crossing his will, became a problem of more difficult
solution.

"It is a trifle whether you breakfast in bed or not," he said suddenly,
halting in his walk and standing before her. "It is vital that you
remember that you are a girl and that I am the head of this family,
whose right and duty it is to direct you. It was I who brought this
family out of obscurity and drudgery. But for me you would now be
mending some lumberjack's socks and washing his dishes and living in the
gray monotony of unvaried days. There has been only one productive
member in our household and that is myself. There has been just one who
could, with no outside aid, meet the world and conquer it, and the
family which I have brought up with me from an abandoned farm to the
high places of success must regard my wishes."

"You have summarized with the modesty of a tyrant and a czar," she
replied as her eyes suddenly broke into an unexpected fire and her
uptilted chin set itself defiantly, "the many favors that your hand of
self-made royalty has conferred upon your suppliant family." Her musical
voice took on a deeper thrill. "You have reminded me that my father and
mother, my brother and myself, are all but parasites that feed upon your
so-great powers of achievement. _Eh bien_, you have made a mistake. My
mother is a saint--"

"If any one dared to contradict that--" interrupted Hamilton hotly, but
she halted him with an imperious wave of her hand.

"If my czar-like brother will permit his sister to address his throne,"
she said with quiet sarcasm, "I shall esteem it a gracious favor. Let us
be frank with each other. My mother is a saint and my father a good man.
My brother, Paul, is a genius in music--and a we