"Pretty soon he opened the door that led upstairs. 'Mary,' he shouted, 'you --- ---- come down and be ---- quick about it, I tell ye.' And when I did, he said, 'I'll see whether we'll own any one what will disgrace their poor, respectable, honest grandparents, _what has brought ye up in the way ye should go_, in their old age! Out ye go, and be ---- quick about it.' I can see him now, and Grandmother, who was sitting at the kitchen table, sobbing with her head buried in her apron. I crawled on my hands and knees toward him; I begged him not to turn me out; I clung to him so that he could hardly walk, while he, in his rage, was backing along the hall out toward the front door, and then he managed to open it, me still clinging to him, and threw me, with a curse, out into the dark, cold, wet night. "I lay there on the doorstep until I found I was getting a soaking, and then I went to a neighbor about a block away, who always had been very kind to me, and had a girl of her own a little younger than me. Did I tell her? Of course I did; I had to. So she took pity on me and let me sleep there that night on a shake-down in the parlor, although Mattie (her daughter) had a large bed to herself, and I told her not to go to so much trouble, that I could sleep with her as I'd done before, many's the time. But she said girls would get to talking, and she didn't want her innocent Mattie to know a girl could ever bring such disgrace on honest, respectable parents. But she didn't know how Mattie and I used to talk for hours after we'd get in bed at night, about our 'fellers' and such like, but now, who was I that I should tell her mother this? "In the morning after breakfast (she kept Mattie out of sight somewhere) she took me into the parlor, shut the door, and said: "'Mary child, I'm sorry for you, I am indeed, but I can't keep you here. You know where the county hospital is, don't you? Well, you go there, and they'll take you in. They'll take such cases as yours. Here's a quarter to pay your car fare. You needn't let on you stopped with me. You may be sure _I_ won't, for I respect your Grandfather and Grandmother highly. I don't want them to find out I know anything about your trouble or that I took you in. Why, they'd never speak to me again. There, there, don't cry. Good-by and good luck to you, Mary.'