e was a normal girl, she often gave him a sense of mystery which
irritated him.

Had Henry Whitman dreamed of what was really going on in the Ayres
house, he would have been devoutly thankful that he had no daughter.
He had in reality heard the sob which he had not been sure of. It had
come from Lucy's room. Her mother was there with her. The two had
been closeted together ever since Rose had gone. Lucy had rushed
up-stairs and pulled off her pretty gown with a hysterical fury. She
had torn it at the neck, because the hooks would not unfasten easily,
before her mother, who moved more slowly, had entered the room.

"What are you doing, Lucy?" Mrs. Ayres asked, in a voice which was at
once tender and stern.

"Getting out of this old dress," replied Lucy, fiercely.

"Stand round here by the light," said her mother, calmly. Lucy
obeyed. She stood, although her shoulders twitched nervously, while
her mother unfastened her gown. Then she began almost tearing off her
other garments. "Lucy," said Mrs. Ayres, "you are over twenty years
old, and a woman grown, but you are not as strong as I am, and I used
to take you over my knee and spank you when you were a child and
didn't behave, and I'll do it now if you are not careful. You
unfasten that corset-cover properly. You are tearing the lace."

Lucy gazed at her mother a moment in a frenzy of rage, then suddenly
her face began to work piteously. She flung herself face downward
upon her bed, and sobbed long, hysterical sobs. Then Mrs. Ayres waxed
tender. She bent over the girl, and gently untied ribbons and
unfastened buttons, and slipped a night-gown over her head. Then she
rolled her over in the bed, as if she had been a baby, and laid her
own cheek against the hot, throbbing one of the girl. "Mother's
lamb," she said, softly. "There, there, dear, mother knows all about
it."

"You don't," gasped the girl. "What do you know? You--you were
married when you were years younger than I am." There was something
violently accusing in her tone. She thrust her mother away and sat up
in bed, and looked at her with fierce eyes blazing like lamps in her
soft, flushed face.

"I know it," said Mrs. Ayres. "I know it, and I know what you mean,
Lucy; but there is something else which I know and you do not."

"I'd like to know what!"

"How a mother reads the heart of her child."

Lucy stared at her mother. Her face softened. Then it grew burning
red and angrier. "You taunt me with tha