The policeman was so far satisfied with what he heard, that he left it in Mary's hands to get back the watch and chain from the jeweller's in the morning: which she was happily able to do, since he had not sold it. I did not hear till long after that Mary had to pay a good deal over what Walter had received for it. Thanks to his extravagance, the only way in which she could do this was by parting with the two or three trinkets of value which had come to her from her mother. "Kitty, it has been a foolish business—worse than foolish," Mary said, when her story was ended. And that was true enough. It did look very foolish, very wrong. I felt as miserable as Walter could have felt: partly knowing how I'd been in the wrong: partly a sort of disappointment in him. I did think, after I'd done and borne so much, he needn't have been so ready to say hard words of me. I'm almost afraid that was the uppermost thought with me, as I sat on the floor, hiding my face in Mary's dress; and yet there was real sorrow below. "You'll stay here to-night," mother said to Mary. She spoke still in a hard sort of voice, as if she couldn't trust herself. "O no—only to dinner. I must go home early," Mary said. Mother didn't press for more. She seemed too down-hearted to care. "Kitty, you'd best be about your work. You've sat there long enough," says she. It was the first time in all my life mother had ever spoken to me in that tone—almost as if I was a stranger. Mother wasn't given to showing anger in her manner, as I've said earlier. But then she'd never before found me out in a course of deceit, and she was bitterly disappointed in her Kitty. She and father too—ah, poor father! If I had but been able to look forward, and to see what was coming! When mother spoke, I got up, and stood still in a dazed way. Mary said, almost whispering— "Haven't you a word to say to your mother, Kitty?" But mother broke in, sharp and short— "No, Mary, I won't have Kitty prompted," said she. "If Kitty don't know what she ought to do, she needn't do it! Saying at somebody's bidding don't mean much. And I don't know either as Kitty's words 'll be worth anything to me ever again," says she. "I did think I could trust her; and I can't." "Kitty will win her way back to your trust," says Mary. "Maybe," mother said. "It'll take a lot of winning, though. I wasn't easy persuaded that she could deceive me—not even when the policeman said so, for I thought it was a mistake. And I shan't be easy persuaded to trust her again." "But you love her still," pleaded Mary. "A mother always loves her child. You'll help her to get back into the right path." And then Mary turned to me again, and said, "Kitty!" —pleading-like. I knew she meant I ought to beg mother's pardon; and it's hard to tell now why I didn't. Mother's manner kept me off, partly, and I felt stupefied, and the real pain at my heart was about Walter, not so much yet about mother and father.