As she reached the top step of the stairs a door opened, and Mrs. Lawton in her undress uniform of mind as well as body, a guttering candle held high above her head, stood enframed in the doorway--Mrs. Lawton in night-dress and knitted bedroom slippers, but without her upper teeth, without her thick switch of hair, without her rosy bloom of rouge vinaigre; and without all these things it was surprising how little there seemed to be left of the every-day familiar Letitia Lawton. Looking at the small, sleek head; the pallid, sunken face; the flattened figure--Sybil thought, rather wickedly: "This is a sort of skeleton mamma. I wonder if papa would like to put her in the closet?" But the lady was addressing her querulously: "Oh, you have decided it to be worth while to follow a mother's suggestion, and come into the house at last? In former days I could have called in a doctor for every chill in the family, even for the servants--though, to tell the truth, servants rarely have real hearty chills; indeed, I doubt their ability to contract genuine malaria. It's a mere desire to imitate their employers. But now that your poor father has lost everything--that is, everything except his good name [with a stinging look at Sybil, which, that young person understood perfectly]--I can only defend the health of my family with the quinine bottle, and I do think you and your father might have held your secret consultation inside the house. I'm sure neither Dorothy nor I would have tried to pry!" "Oh, mamma!" indignantly exclaimed Sybil, "you know what I was asking of papa!"