nother instant she
would have been kneeling beside him with everything confessed, when the
door flew open and her sister Ida came bounding into the room. She wore
a short grey skirt, like that of Mrs. Westmacott, and she held it up in
each hand and danced about among the furniture.

"I feel quite the Gaiety girl!" she cried. "How delicious it must be
to be upon the stage! You can't think how nice this dress is, papa. One
feels so free in it. And isn't Clara charming?"

"Go to your room this instant and take it off!" thundered the Doctor. "I
call it highly improper, and no daughter of mine shall wear it."

"Papa! Improper! Why, it is the exact model of Mrs. Westmacott's."

"I say it is improper. And yours also, Clara! Your conduct is really
outrageous. You drive me out of the house. I am going to my club in
town. I have no comfort or peace of mind in my own house. I will stand
it no longer. I may be late to-night--I shall go to the British
Medical meeting. But when I return I shall hope to find that you have
reconsidered your conduct, and that you have shaken yourself clear of
the pernicious influences which have recently made such an alteration
in your conduct." He seized his hat, slammed the dining-room door, and a
few minutes later they heard the crash of the big front gate.

"Victory, Clara, victory!" cried Ida, still pirouetting around the
furniture. "Did you hear what he said? Pernicious influences! Don't you
understand, Clara? Why do you sit there so pale and glum? Why don't you
get up and dance?"

"Oh, I shall be so glad when it is over, Ida. I do hate to give him
pain. Surely he has learned now that it is very unpleasant to spend
one's life with reformers."

"He has almost learned it, Clara. Just one more little lesson. We must
not risk all at this last moment."

"What would you do, Ida? Oh, don't do anything too dreadful. I feel that
we have gone too far already."

"Oh, we can do it very nicely. You see we are both engaged and that
makes it very easy. Harold will do what you ask him, especially as you
have told him the reason why, and my Charles will do it without even
wanting to know the reason. Now you know what Mrs. Westmacott thinks
about the reserve of young ladies. Mere prudery, affectation, and a
relic of the dark ages of the Zenana. Those were her words, were they
not?"

"What then?"

"Well, now we must put it in practice. We are reducing all her other
views to practice, and we must not sh