Reluctantly he pushed open the door. It was a pretty quarrel as it stood. At one end of the little room, gay with light and color, was Julie, leaning on the mantel. She wore a crimson house-dress a trifle low at the throat, which set off vividly her rich, dark beauty. Undoubtedly she had beauty, and a singular, gypsy-like piquancy as well. It did not seem to matter that the gown was slightly shabby. She was kicking the white fur hearth-rug petulantly now and then to punctuate her remarks. Dora, with her book in her lap, sat in a low chair by the lamp. Dora was a slender, self-possessed girl of fifteen, in whose cold, young eyes her step-mother had read from the first a concentrated and silent disapproval which was really very exasperating. “It’s the first time that woman has set foot in this house since I’ve been the mistress of it,” Julie was saying, angrily. “Maybe she thinks I ain’t fine enough for her to call on. Lord! I’d like to tell her what I think of her. It was her business to ask for me, and it was your business to call me, whether she did or not. Maybe you think I ain’t enough of a lady to answer Mrs. Buel Parry’s questions. I’d like to have you remember I’m your father’s wife!” Dora’s head dropped lower in an agony of vicarious shame. How, her severe young mind was asking itself, could any woman bear to give herself away to such an appalling extent? To reveal that one had thwarted social ambitions; to admit that one might not seem a lady--degradation could go no farther in the young girl’s eyes. “What’s the matter, Dora?” asked Applegate, quietly, in the lull following Julie’s last remark. “Mrs. Parry came to the door to ask what sort of a servant Mary Samphill had been. Mamma was in the kitchen, teaching the new girl how to mould bread, and I answered Mrs. Parry’s questions. She did not ask for any one.” “I say it was Dora’s business to ask her in and call me. Whose servant was Mary Samphill, I’d like to know. Was she Dora’s?” Applegate crossed the room to the open fire and stretched his chilled fingers to the flame. “Aren’t you a little unreasonable, Julie?” he inquired, gently. “If Mrs. Parry didn’t ask for you, I don’t quite see what Dora could do but answer her questions.”