swer, Gladys Le
Baron walked smilingly into the room. She looked in surprise at her
father's dark, revengeful face.

"Is anything the matter?" she inquired, her face sobering in an instant.
"I wondered why father ran off by himself to see Aunt Mollie and Bab. I
thought you would like to have me join you----"

"Go back to your apartment at once, Gladys!" interrupted her father
sternly.

Mr. Stuart turned upon him. "Ralph Le Baron, I am going to do something,
to-night, that I never expected to do in my life. I am going to expose a
father to his own child. Wait here a minute, Gladys."

Mr. Stuart then told Gladys the whole story. She stood listening in utter
silence, her face crimson with blushes. Barbara could only look at her
cousin through a mist of tears. When Mr. Stuart had ended his story, he
said: "I am sorry indeed to tell you this, Gladys, but you must have
learned it some day. I do not know whether your father is right in regard
to the law in this matter, but Mrs. Thurston will carry the case to
court."

Gladys went over to her father, who had never raised his eyes to look at
her, while Mr. Stuart was speaking, nor did he make any denial.

"Is it true, father?" she asked him at last.

"It is in a measure true, Gladys," her father answered, "but it is purely
a matter of business, which you cannot be expected to understand."

Gladys put her head down on the arm of the sofa, where she now sat by her
father, and wept bitterly. There was no other sound in the room, except
an occasional suppressed sob from Mrs. Thurston. Bab was far too excited
and too angry to cry!

Finally Gladys raised her head. "Father, on my sixteenth birthday, you
settled five thousand dollars on me in my own name!" She spoke in a low
voice. "If you do not feel that you ought to pay back to Aunt Mollie the
money you borrowed from Uncle John, won't you please let me give her this
money of mine? I must do it, father. I can't understand the business side
of it, but it just seems to me we owe her the money and that's all there
is to it! I have been horrid and haughty many times, but I can't bear
that we should seem--dishonest!"

Poor Gladys whispered this last dreadful word under her breath. Then she
put her arms round her father and kissed him. "You are not angry with
me?" she asked him.

If there was one person in the world Ralph Le Baron truly loved it was
his only child, Gladys. Not for ten times five thousand dollars would he
have