I'll know WHY you did it--it's because you're jealous, and you
want everyone in the world to be in love with YOU! You hate me
because my father loves me, and you would do anything in the world
to make trouble between us! I've known it ever since I was a
little girl, even if I never have said it before! I--" She choked,
and tears of youthful rage came into her eyes.

"Don't be preposterous, Bill. You've said it before, every time
you've been angry, in the last five years," the older woman said
coolly. "This only means that you will feel that you have to wake
me up, when you come in to-night, to say that you are sorry."

"I will not!" said the girl at white heat.

"Well, I hope you won't," Rachael Breckenridge said amiably, "for
if there is one thing I loathe more than another, it is being
waked up for theatricals in the middle of the night. Good-bye. Be
sure to thank Mrs. Bowditch for chaperoning you."

"Are you going to speak to Clancy?" the girl demanded imperiously.

"Run along, Billy," Rachael said, with a faint show of impatience.
"Nobody could speak to your father about anything to-night, as you
ought to know."

For a moment Billy stood still, breathing hard and with tightly
closed lips, her angry eyes on her step-mother. Then her breast
rose on a childish, dry sob, she dropped her eyes, and moved a
shining slipper-toe upon the rug with the immortal motion of
embarrassed youth.