“Me unreasonable? I like that! Mrs. Buel Parry came to this house to see me, but Dora was bound I shouldn’t see her. Dora thinks”--she hesitated a moment, choking with her resentment--“she thinks I ain’t Mrs. Parry’s kind, and she was going to be considerate and keep us apart. Oh, yes! She thinks she knows what the upper crust wants. If I’m not Mrs. Parry’s sort, I’d like to know why. You thought I was your sort fast enough, John Applegate!” and Julie threw back her dark head with a gesture that was very fine in its insolence. “I guess if Mrs. Parry and Mrs. Otis and that set are company for you, they’re company for me. Of course you take Dora’s side. You always do. I can tell you one thing. When I was Frazer MacDonald’s wife I had some things I don’t have now, for all you think you’re so fine. MacDonald never would have stood by and seen me put upon. If folks wasn’t civil to his wife, he knew the reason why. I might have done better than marry you--I might----” Julie stopped to take breath. “Do you think I can make Mrs. Parry call on you if she doesn’t want to, Julie?” She shrugged her shoulders. “What is the good of marrying a man who can’t do anything for you?” she demanded. “It isn’t any more than my due she should call, and you know it. She was thick enough with your first wife. And me to be treated so after all I’ve done for you and your children. I give you notice I’m going to Pullman to-morrow, and I’m going to stay till I get good and ready to come back. Maybe you’ll find out who makes this house comfortable for you, John Applegate. Maybe you will.” And with this Julie slipped across the room--she could not be ungraceful even when she was most violent--and left it, shutting the door with emphasis. There was deep silence between Applegate and his daughter for a little while. Why should either speak when there was really nothing to say? “Supper is on the table, father,” observed Dora, at last. “There is no use in letting it get any colder,” and still in silence they went to their meal. Julie MacDonald, born Dessaix, was the daughter of a French market-gardener and of a Spanish woman, the danseuse of a travelling troupe, who, when the company was left stranded in an Indiana town, married this thrifty admirer. The latter part of Julie’s childhood was passed in a convent school, whence she emerged at fifteen a rabid little Protestant with manners which the Sisters had subdued slightly but had not been able to make gentle. She learned the milliner’s trade, which she practised until, at twenty-two, she married Frazer MacDonald, a gigantic, red-haired Scotch surveyor.