"That is the strangest part of it," replied her husband. "He came in this noon, dripping wet, and Mrs. Hapgood hasn't been able to make him tell what had happened." "Oh, mamma!" The doctor and his wife both started up, at the sound of the strange, stifled voice. In the door directly behind them stood Polly, barefooted and with her teeth chattering violently, while her face was so swollen with tears as to be almost unrecogizable. "Polly!" Mrs. Adams sprang towards her, but Polly waved her off. "Don't touch me, mamma! Don't kiss me, till you know all about it, what I've done! I'm to blame about Alan." Without speaking Mrs. Adams caught up the afghan from the sofa and wrapped it closely about her daughter. Then, leading her to the bright wood fire, she sat down before it and took Polly into her lap, as if she had been a little child. The gentleness of her manner, the unspoken sympathy for some trouble which she did not yet know, had started Polly's tears to flowing again, and for a long time she could only cling to her mother and sob, with her head against the soft, warm cheek and a loving arm about her shoulders. For some moments, the quiet of the room was only broken by the measured ticking of the clock on the mantel and the snapping of the fire on the andirons. At length Mrs. Adams said gently,-- "Now, Polly, tell me all about it." And Polly told, sparing herself in no way, but giving all the details with a merciless truthfulness, and ending, with a sob,-- "And after all that, mamma, he tried to help me up when I fell, and I drove him off, and now--Oh, what shall I do! Scold me, if you want to; you ought to! I tried to tell you before, but I couldn't." Mrs. Adams's arms grew tighter about her daughter, while she said gravely, very gravely,-- "Polly, dear, I am much too sorry for you, to scold you." As she spoke, the doctor rose quietly and left the room, for he felt that what would follow was for mother and daughter alone, and even he had no right to sit by and listen to their words. "I am sorry for you, dear," her mother went on, after a moment; "not so much for what you are suffering now, as I am because, little by little, you have let your temper get the better of you until to-day, for just this trifle, you have forgotten yourself entirely. The pain you have borne tonight on Alan's account is only a blessing to you, the natural punishment for what you have done, and it will help you to remember this another time, when you are angry. Each one of these fits of temper leaves a scar, Polly, that nothing can ever entirely heal; and I want no such scars on my Polly's womanhood, which must be above reproach. You are very dear to me, my daughter, and my whole life is bound up in my hopes for your future." "Oh, how can I remember!" sobbed Polly. "It is all over, so in a minute, and then I just hate myself, but it doesn't do the least bit of good."