"Have you not finished yet?" Miss Diana closed the door, glanced from one to the other, and laughed with a genial brutality. "Well, it's time I came. Dear mamma, you seem to be getting your feathers pulled." There was a byword among the Whig families at home (who, by intermarrying, had learned to gauge another's weaknesses), that "the Pett medal showed ill in reverse." Miss Diana had heard the saying. As a Vyell--the Vyells were, before all things, critical--she knew it to be just, as well as malicious; but as a dutiful daughter she ought to have remembered. As it was, her cool comment stung her mother to fury. The poor lady pointed a finger at Ruth, and spluttered (there is no more elegant word for the very inelegant exhibition),-- "A strumpet! One that has been whipped through the public streets." There was a dreadful pause. Miss Diana, the first to recover herself, stepped back to the door and held it open. "You must excuse dear mamma," she said coolly. "She has overtired herself." But Lady Caroline continued to point a finger trembling with passion. "Her price!" she shrilled. "Ask her that. It is all these creatures ever understand!" Miss Diana slipped an arm beneath her elbow and firmly conducted her forth. Ruth, hearing the door shut, supposed that both women had withdrawn. She sank into a chair, and was stretching out her arms over the table to bury her face in them and sob, when the voice of the younger said quietly behind her shoulder,-- "It is always hard, after mamma's tantrums, to bring the talk back to a decent level. Nevertheless, shall we try?" Ruth had drawn herself up again, rallying the spirit in her. It was weary, bruised; but its hour of default was not yet. Her voice dragged, but just perceptibly, as she answered Miss Vyell, who nodded, noting her courage and wondering a little,-- "I am sorry." "Sorry?" "Yes; it was partly my fault--very largely my fault. But your mother angered me from the first by assuming--what she had no right to assume. It was horrible." Diana Vyell seated herself, eyed her steadily for a moment, and nodded again. "Mamma can be _raide_, there's no denying. She was wrong, of course; that's understood. . . . Still, on the whole you have done pretty well, and had your revenge." Ruth's eyes widened, for this was beyond her. Diana explained. "You have let us make the most impossible fools of ourselves. It may have been more by luck than by good management, as they say; but there it is. Now don't say that revenge isn't sweet. . . . I've done you what justice I can; but if you pose as an angel from heaven, it's asking too much." While Ruth considered this, she added, "I don't know if you can put yourself in mamma's place for a moment; but if you can, the hoax is complete enough, you'll admit." "I had rather put myself in yours."