"I suppose," returned Professor Ladue airily, "that you can go wherever your legs will carry you. I see no indications of your inability in that direction or in any other. Whether you _may_ go is another question." Sally did not smile. "Well, then, may I? Have you any objection? Will you let me go?" "That is a matter which deserves more consideration. Why do you wish to go?" "Only because mother wants me to," Sally answered. "I like to please mother." "Oh," said the professor. "Ah! And what, if I may ask, are your own inclinations in the matter?" "Well," replied Sally slowly. "I--it doesn't seem to me that it would be very interesting to go there just because a lot of other children go. I could have a lot better time playing by myself. That is, I--of course, there's Henrietta, but Margaret Savage is stupid. But," she added hastily, "I do want to go because mother wants me to." "Oh," the professor remarked, with a slight smile of amusement; "so Margaret Savage is stupid. But why didn't your mother ask me herself?" "Perhaps she was afraid to," Sally said quietly. "I don't know what the reason was." "But you think it was that she was afraid to." The smile on his face changed imperceptibly. The change made it a sneer. It is astonishing to see how much a slight change can accomplish. "Perhaps you know why she was afraid?" "Yes," Sally acknowledged, "perhaps I do." "Well, would you be good enough to give me the benefit of your ideas on that subject?" Sally flushed a little, but she did not falter in the directness of her gaze any more than in her speech. "You generally make her cry when she asks you for anything." The professor flushed in his turn. "Indeed!" said he. "A most observing child! A very observing child, indeed. And so your mother sent you in her place." "She didn't," said Sally impassively, although with a rising color; "she doesn't know anything about my coming." "Oh!" remarked the professor reflectively. "So you came on your own hook--off your own bat." She nodded. There was a long silence while Professor Ladue drummed on the table with his fingers. Sally waited. At last he turned. "Sally," he said, with a slight return of that gayety he had shown on her entrance, "the high courage of Miss Sally Ladue shall receive the reward which it deserves. It is not fitting that it should not. Bearding the lion in his den is nothing to it. I am curious to know, Sally, whether you--" But there the professor stopped. He had been about to ask his daughter, aged ten, whether she was not afraid. He knew that she was not afraid. He knew that, if there was some fear, some hesitation, some doubt as to the exact outcome of the interview, it was not on Sally's part. Sally was waiting for him to finish.