“I don’t see why! Anyway, I hate weddings. I only care for dances. Momsey, aren’t you going to let me go to this dance? What difference does it make if I’m _not_ out? All my friends are to be there—the Clarks, and Edith Bayne and Francis Fanshawe. Daddy said I could go before he went away, and I’ve been counting on it all the time, and now you won’t let me!” Tina sat on an ottoman in the centre of the big, mahogany-furnished, old-fashioned room, with her light hair falling over one ear and her large, clear, blue eyes fixed tragically on the face of the parent who sat busily sewing. Tina’s slim shoulders were hunched forward and her feet crossed in the attitude which always brought forth her mother’s rebuke: “Don’t sit that way, dear; it’s very unladylike. How often have I told you, Tina, that if you get in the habit of sitting like that when we’re alone you’ll do it when you don’t realize it.” Mrs. Malison’s voice had the tone of a well-worn persistency. She was a young-looking woman for her years, and still handsome enough to make the resemblance to her youngest daughter very apparent even to the obstinate little curve of the short upper lip. The answer was almost as automatic: “I wouldn’t _care_! Momsey, why won’t you let me go to the dance?” “Now, Tina, what is the use of teasing mother any more about that?” said the second daughter, coming into the room. Elinor was small and dark, with finely marked eyebrows, regular features, and an expression of great intelligence, wrecked at times by a shattering wave of nervousness. At the moment she carried in her hand a bird’s bathtub, filled with water, destined for the cage over by the window, where a brown and dishevelled canary hung mopingly from a perch. She went on: “You know perfectly well that mother thinks you’ve been staying up a great deal too late in the evening. You cannot study and go out at the same time. And she told you she didn’t approve of your being so much with Francis Fanshawe—none of us do. He may be a nice enough boy, but he isn’t our kind. We all of us think you’d better let the acquaintance drop.” “Oh, if you don’t want me to do _anything_!” Tina’s eyes began to sparkle ominously. “It doesn’t make the slightest difference to me when you talk that way about my friends. I like them, no matter what you and Annette say. You’ve always been down on Francis! And I don’t care whether I keep on with my studies or not.” “Tina!” Elinor carefully inserted the bathtub in the cage before flinging herself volubly upon the subject. “Tina, you can’t mean that—you want to be educated, I hope! Besides, you’ll enjoy coming out into society a great deal more later, and if you’re seen everywhere now, people will be taking you for much older than you are.”