“No, it wasn't,” declared Dolly. “But he can't run over me with his unreasonable ideas about Alan Bishop.” With that she turned and went towards the house, her head down. On the veranda she met her mother, who was waiting for her with a pleasurable smile. “You've stirred up yore pa awful,” she said, laughing impulsively, and then trying to veil it with a seriousness that sat awkwardly on her. “You'd better dodge him right now. Oh, he's hot! He was just saying this morning that he believed you and Frank were getting on fine, and now he says Frank is an idiot to take a girl to a picnic to meet his rival. How did it happen?” “Just as I intended it should, mother,” Dolly said. “I knew he was coming, and sent Frank off after a watermelon. He didn't have sense enough to see through my ruse. If I'd treated Alan that way he'd simply have looked straight through me as if I'd been a window-pane. Mother, I'm not going to put up with it. I tell you I won't. I know what there is in Alan Bishop better than father does, and I am not going to stand it.” “You ain't, heigh?” thundered Barclay across the hall, and he stalked out of the sitting-room, looking over his eye-glasses, a newspaper in his hand. “Now, my lady, let me say to you that Alan Bishop shall never darken my door, and if you meet him again anywhere you shall go away and stay.” “Father “--Dolly had never stood so tall in her high-heeled shoes nor so straight--“Father, you insulted Alan just now before Mrs. Alexander and Hattie, and I'm not going to have you do it any more. I love him, and I shall never love any other man, nor marry any other man. I know he loves me, and I'm going to stick to him.” “Then the quicker you get away from here the better,” said the old man, beside himself with rage. “And when you go, don't you dare to come back again.” The Colonel stalked from the room. Dolly glanced at her mother, who had a pale smile of half-frightened enjoyment on her face. “I think you said 'most too much,” Mrs. Barclay said. “You'd better not drive him too far.” Dolly went up to her room, and when supper was called, half an hour later, she declined to come down. However, Mrs. Barclay sent up a tray of delicacies by Aunt Milly, the old colored woman, which came back untouched.