Has_
he passed?"

"Whose fault was it, Dollie? He came home to dinner and found you all
alone. Did you _ask_ him how he had got on?"

Dorothy hung her head. Mrs. Graham kissed her. "Well, go to bed and pray
for dear father," she said. "It is worse for him than for any of us."

Dorothy felt as if she were choking. When she got to the door she stood
hesitating with her hand on the handle.

"I have a hundred pounds in the Bank, mother, that grandma left me.
Father can have that if it would be any use." She had made the offer
with an effort, for Dorothy liked to have a hundred pounds of her own.
What little girl would not? But her mother answered peevishly: "It would
be no more use than if you offered him a halfpenny. Don't be foolish."

Dick's door was open and Dorothy went in.

"Isn't it dreadful, Dick!" she said. "What is _bankrupt_? How much money
does father want?"

"About fifteen hundred," said Dick savagely. "It's all that old
Pemberton backing out of it. Father wanted to get his patents to
Brussels, and he's got medals for them all, but it cost a lot of money
and now they are not bought. So the business will go to smash, and he'll
lose the patents besides, that's the worst of it!"

"Dick," said Dorothy wistfully, "don't you think it would be better if
father attended to his proper business and stopped inventing things when
it costs so much?"

Dick sprang up with blazing eyes.

"You little brute!" he said, "go out of my room. No, I don't. Father's
the cleverest and best man in the world. He can't help being a genius!"

[Sidenote: The Last Straw]

This was Dorothy's last straw; she went away and threw herself, dressed,
on her bed, sobbing as if her heart would break. And only this morning
she thought she was miserable because her new dress had not come.

Dorothy cried till she could cry no longer, and then she got up and
slowly undressed. The house was very still. A clock somewhere was
striking ten, and it seemed to Dorothy as if it were the middle of the
night. She was cold now as her mother had been, but no one was likely to
come to her. She felt alone and frightened, and as if a wall had
descended between her and Dick, and her mother and father. Among all the
other puzzling and dreadful things, nothing seemed so strange to Dorothy
as that Dick showed better than herself. He had gone up to mother when
he was told not, and yet it was _right_ (even Dorothy could understand
that) for him to disobey her,