ng it at all.

"Two months ago," said George, with a shrewdly observant eye.

Mary interpreted his expression.

"Certainly I didn't know it!" she said with spirit.

"Didn't, eh? She SAYS you did," George said.

"Mamma does?" Mary was astounded.

"Read that!" Her husband flung a letter on the table.

Mary caught it up, ran through it hastily. It was from Mamma: She was
ending her visit at Rock Bar, the Archibalds were going South rather
early, they had begged her to go, but she didn't want to, and Mary
could look for her any day now. And she was writing to Georgie because
she was afraid she'd have to tell him that she had done an awfully
silly thing: she had sold her Sunbright shares to an awfully attractive
young fellow whom Mr. Pierce had sent to her--and so on and so on.
Mary's eye leaped several lines to her own name. "Mary agreed with me
that the Potter electric light stock was just as safe and they offered
seven per cent," wrote Mamma.

"I DO remember now her saying something about the Potter," Mary said,
raising honest, distressed eyes from the letter, "but with no possible
idea that she meditated anything like this!"

George had been walking up and down the room.

"She's lost every cent!" he said savagely. And he flung both hands out
with an air of frenzy before beginning his angry march again.

Mary sat in stony despair.

"Have you heard from her today?" he flung out.

His wife shook her head.

"Well, she's in town," George presently resumed, "because Bates told me
she telephoned the office while I was out this morning. Now, listen,
Mary. I've done all I'm going to do for your mother! And she's not to
enter this house again--do you understand?"

"George!" said Mary.

"She is not going to ENTER MY HOUSE," reiterated George. "I have often
wondered what led to estrangements in families, but by the Lord, I
think there's some excuse in this case! She lies to me, she sets my
judgment at naught, she does the things with my children that I've
expressly asked her not to do, she cultivates the people I loathe, she
works you into a state of nervous collapse--it's too much! Now she's
thrown her income away,--thrown it away! Now I tell you, Mary, I'll
support her, if that's what she expects--"

"Really, George, you are--you are--Be careful!" Mary exclaimed, roused
in her turn. "You forget to whom you are speaking. I admit that Mamma
is annoying, I admit that you have some cause for complaint,--but you
f