story which was not joy and
gladness--neither good humour nor the abandonment of a luxurious nature.
It was tinged with bitterness and had the smart of the nettle.

Her mother's question only made her laugh the more, and at last Mrs.
Tynan stooped over her and said, "I could shake you, Kitty. You'd make
a snail fidget, and I've got enough to do to keep my senses steady with
all the house-work--and now her in there!" She tossed a hand behind her
fretfully.

Quick with love for her mother, as she always was, Kitty caught the
other's trembling hand. "You've always had too much to do, mother;
always been slaving for others. You've never had time to think whether
you're happy or not, or whether you've got a problem--that's what people
call things, when they're got so much time on their hands that they make
a play of their inside feelings and work it up till it sets them crazy."

Mrs. Tynan's mouth tightened and her brow clouded. "I've had my problems
too, but I always made quick work of them. They never had a chance to
overlay me like a mother overlays her baby and kills it."

"Not 'like a mother overlays,' but 'as a mother overlays,'" returned
Kitty with a queer note to her voice. "That's what they taught me at
school. The teacher was always picking us up on that kind of thing. I
said a thing worse than that when Mrs. Crozier"--her fingers motioned
towards another room--"came to-day. I don't know what possessed me. I
was off my trolley, I suppose, as John Sibley puts it. Well, when Mrs.
James Shiel Gathorne Crozier said--oh, so sweetly and kindly--'You are
Miss Tynan?' what do you think I replied? I said to her, 'The same'!"

Rather an acidly satisfied smile came to Mrs. Tynan's lips. "That was
like the Slatterly girls," she replied. "Your father would have said it
was the vernacular of the rail-head. He was a great man for odd words,
but he knew always just what he wanted to say and he said it out. You've
got his gift. You always say the right thing, and I don't know why you
made that break with her--of all people."

A meditative look came into Kitty's eyes. "Mr. Crozier says every one
has an imp that loves to tease us, and trip us up, and make us appear
ridiculous before those we don't want to have any advantage over us."

"I don't want Mrs. Crozier to have any advantage over you and me, I can
tell you that. Things'll never be the same here again, Kitty dear, and
we've all got on so well; with him so considerate of