"I should call it the limit, but I suppose she simply _has_ to do it. Mrs. James said Lesbia was fearfully slighted. (She lives next door to the Hiltons so she knows all about them.) They go out to the theatre and leave that poor girl to put all the children to bed, and----" But at this point Lesbia jumped up quietly and stole away. She did not want to overhear any more. Indeed she felt she had already heard far too much. A serpent had crept into her paradise. She was angry with that traitor Mrs. James for gossiping, but she began to wonder whether after all what Marion said was not perfectly true. It had never struck her before to view things from that angle. These were indeed new ideas! The remarks about her dependence on her stepbrother slid from her very lightly. As yet Lesbia was an utter baby in money matters. Paul and Minnie did not discuss their affairs in her presence, and her views were little more advanced than those of Steve and Julie, whose creed was that Daddy picked up pennies in the City and kept them in the big safe at his office. What really rankled was that Marion pitied her for taking out the children. She admired Marion immensely. There had been other friends in her school horizon, but her drifting devotion, which inclined for a time towards Phillis Marsh or Calla Wilkins, had lately centred on Marion. She wanted to stand well in her opinion. It had not occurred to her to compare herself with a nursemaid, for she loved the children and enjoyed taking them for walks, but now Marion had done so. "I won't wheel that perambulator out again--ever!" she decided impulsively. "If I met Marion, and she looked sorry for me, I'd never get over it." By this time Aldora was hunting for her and calling her name noisily, so she took up her strap of books and walked home, feeling as if her standards had suddenly and unexpectedly been turned upside down.