She began to tremble with wrath, and white dents appeared at the corners of her mouth and nostrils. “You’re not the first gurl whose talked that way, and ended by disgracing herself and her family,” she cried shrilly. “If I were your mother, I’d give you a sound whipping, I declare to goodness I would.” Elsie shot a vicious look at her aunt out of the corners of her slanting eyes. “Are the grapes sour, Aunt Ada?” she asked insolently. Aunt Ada turned white. “D’you hear that, Edie?” she gasped. “Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Palmer vigorously, “and I’m not going to put up with it, not for a single instant. Elsie Palmer, you beg your auntie’s pardon directly minute.” “I won’t.” The vast figure of Mrs. Palmer in her Sunday black frock upreared itself and stood, weighty and menacing, over her child. She had never hit either of her daughters since childhood, but neither of them had ever openly defied her. “Do as I say.” “N-no.” Elsie’s voice quavered, and she burst into tears. Mrs. Palmer let out a sigh of relief. She knew that she had won. “Do--as--I--say.” “I’m sure I’m very sorry, Aunt Ada, if I said what I didn’t ought.” “It isn’t what you said, dear,” said Aunt Ada untruthfully. “It was the way you said it.” There was a silence. Then Mrs. Palmer pursued her advantage. “You may as well understand, Elsie, that this isn’t going on. I haven’t got the time, nor yet the strength, to go chasing after you all day long. I know well enough you’re not to be trusted--out of the house the minute my back’s the other way--and coming in at all hours, and always a tale of some sort to account for where you’ve been. So, my lady, you’ve got to make up your mind to a different state of things. What’s it to be: a job as a typewriter, or apprenticed to the millinery? Your kind Aunt Gertie’s got a friend in the business, and she’s offered to speak for you.” “I’d rather the typing,” said Elsie sullenly. “Then you’ll come with me and see about a post to-morrow morning as ever is,” said Mrs. Palmer. “It’s your own doing. You could have stayed at home like a lady, helping Mother and Geraldine, if you’d cared to. But I’m not going to have any gurl of mine getting herself a name the way you’ve been doing.” “I suppose I can go now?” “You can go if you want to,” said Mrs. Palmer, flushed with victory. “And mind and remember what I’ve said, for I mean every word of it.” It was only too evident that she did, and Elsie went out of the room crying angrily. She did not really mind the idea of becoming a typist in an office or a shop in the very least, but she hated having been humiliated in front of her aunts and Geraldine. As she went upstairs, sobbing, she met Mrs. Williams coming down. She was a gentle, unhealthy-looking woman of about thirty, so thin that her clothes always looked as though they might drop off her bending, angular body. “What’s the matter, dear?” “It’s nothing.” “Come into the sitting-room, won’t you, and rest a minute?” “Well, I don’t mind.”