Dolly's mother had never forgotten that she was once a girl herself, and she took the most active interest in everything pertaining to Dolly's social life. On occasions like the one just described she found it impossible to sleep till her daughter returned, and then she slipped up-stairs, and made the girl tell all about it while she was disrobing. To-night she was more alert and wide-awake than usual. She opened the front door for Dolly and almost stepped on the girl's heels as she followed her up-stairs. “Was it nice?” she asked. “Yes, very,” Dolly replied. Reaching her room, she turned up the low-burning lamp, and, standing before a mirror, began to take some flowers out of her hair. Mrs. Barclay sat down on the edge of the high-posted mahogany bed and raised one of her bare feet and held it in her hand. She was a thin woman with iron-gray hair, and about fifty years of age. She looked as if she were cold; but, for reasons of her own, she was not willing for Dolly to remark it. “Who was there?” she asked. “Oh, everybody.” “Is that so? I thought a good many would stay away because it was a bad night; but I reckon they are as anxious to go as we used to be. Then you all did have the hacks?” “Yes, they had the hacks.” There was a pause, during which one pair of eyes was fixed rather vacantly on the image in the mirror; the other pair, full of impatient inquiry, rested alternately on the image and its maker. “I don't believe you had a good time,” broke the silence, in a rising, tentative tone. “Yes, I did, mother.” “Then what's the matter with you?” Mrs. Barclay's voice rang with impatience. “I never saw you act like you do to-night, never in my life.” “I didn't know anything was wrong with me, mother.” “You act queer; I declare you do,” asserted Mrs. Barclay. “You generally have a lot to say. Have you and Frank had a falling out?” Dolly gave her shoulders a sudden shrug of contempt. “No, we got along as well as we ever did.” “I thought maybe he was a little mad because you wouldn't dance to-night; but surely he's got enough sense to see that you oughtn't to insult brother Dill-beck that way when he's visiting our house and everybody knows what he thinks about dancing.” “No, he thought I did right about it,” said Dolly. “Then what in the name of common-sense is the matter with you, Dolly? You can' t pull the wool over my eyes, and you needn't try it.” Dolly faced about suddenly. “I reckon you 'll sit there all night unless I tell you all about it,” she said, sharply. “Mother, Alan Bishop was there.” “You don't say!” “Yes, and asked me to let him take me to church to-morrow evening.” “Oh, he did?” “Yes, and as I didn't want father to insult him, I--” “You told him what your pa said?” “No, I just told him father didn't want me to receive him any more. Heaven knows, that was enough.”