Gordons hadn't come into the family. Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn't see
you." For standing in the doorway was her stepmother.

"I am sorry that the coming of the Gordons has caused you so much
trouble, Edith. We--we are unfortunate."

She turned away and went up stairs.

"Edith, I don't see how you can," exclaimed Cynthia. "Mamma had so much
trouble when she was a young girl, and she was so alone until she came
here, and now all this about Neal. Really, I don't see how you can."

And she ran after her mother.

Edith, left alone, was a prey to conflicting emotions. She knew she had
done wrong--very wrong. She was really sorry for the grief that Mrs.
Franklin was suffering on Neal's account, and she had not wanted to hurt
her.

"Of course, I did not intend her to hear me. How did I know she was
there? It makes me so angry to think that I can't do what I want."

That was the gist of the whole matter. Edith wanted her own way, and she
was determined to have it. She sat for a long time, thinking it all
over. She did not make any great effort to quench her resentment, and
so, of course, it became more intense. After a while she went to the
desk.

"I simply can't write him that I won't go," she said to herself. "How
they would all laugh if I said Mrs. Franklin 'had made other plans for
me,' as if I were Janet's age! No, I'll write Gertrude that I'll come
down and spend the day with her, and perhaps when I get there I can
induce Tony to play tennis, or something, instead of going to drive.
I'll try and get out of it, as long as I must, but I'm going to have a
good time of some sort."

She wrote the note, and it was sent to the Morgans' that night. Mrs.
Franklin supposed, of course, that it was merely to give up the drive;
so she was surprised when Edith announced that she was going to spend
the next day with Gertrude. However, she raised no objections, nor
indeed did she have any. Her mind was too full of Neal to think of much
else. Even the altercation with Edith failed to make any lasting
impression. Hester longed for her husband to return and tell her what he
had learned.

Cynthia did not take it so quietly.

"I think you are a goose, Edith," she said, the next morning. "Every one
will think you are running after Tony Bronson. You were there to dinner
yesterday, and now you are going again to-day."

Edith was greatly incensed.

"I am _not_ running after him. How can you say such things? I often go
there tw