slanting look from between half-lowered lashes.
"I mean--money," she said softly; and gave Mrs. Milo a playful little
poke.

"Money!"--too frightened, now, even to resent familiarity. "Money!
Oh, you wouldn't----! You don't----!"

"Yes, ma'am! You want somethin' from me, and I can give it to y', but
you're goin' to _pay_ for it!"

The double door opened. Sue entered, her look startled and inquiring.
It was plain that she had overheard.

Mrs. Milo pretended not to have noted Sue's coming. "Yes, very well,"
she said to Tottie, as if continuing a conversation that was casual;
but the blue eyes were frightened. "Thank you so _much_!"--warmly.
"And isn't that a bell I hear ringing?" She gave the landlady a glance
full of meaning.

"Ha-ha!" With a nod and a saucy backward grin, Tottie went out.

For a moment neither mother nor daughter spoke. Sue waited, trying to
puzzle out the significance of what she had caught; and scarcely daring
to charge an indiscretion. Mrs. Milo waited, forcing Sue to speak
first, and thus betray how much she had heard.

"I thought you'd gone," ventured Sue.

"Gone, darling? Without you?"

"That woman;"--Sue came closer--"I hope you were very careful."

"Why, I was!"--this not without the note of injured innocence always so
effective.

But Sue was not to be blocked so easily. "You're going to pay her for
what?"

"Pay?"

"What was she saying?"

Now Mrs. Milo realized that she had been heard: that she must save
herself from a mortifying situation by some other method than simple
justification. She took refuge in tears. "I can see that you're
trying to blame me for something!" she complained, and sank, weeping,
to the settee.

"I don't like to, mother," answered Sue, "but----"

That good angel who watches over those who see no other way out of an
embarrassing predicament save the unlikely arrival of an earthquake or
an aeroplane now intervened in Mrs. Milo's behalf. Dora came in,
showing that the bell had, indeed, been summoning the mistress of the
house. Behind Dora was Tottie, and the attitude of each to the other
was plainly belligerent.

"As you don't know your Scriptures," Dora was saying, with a sad
intonation which marked Tottie as one of those past redemption, "I'll
repeat the reference for you: 'Curiosity was given to man as a
scourge.'" Then in anything but a spirit proper to a biblical
quotation, she slammed the door in Tottie's face.

Mrs. Milo, dr