And Katherine Foster burst into tears, and with her arms suddenly thrown about her husband's neck she sobbed: "Oh, yes, it is too bad! It is too bad!" But it did not seem possible to her husband that the broken vase could have so affected her, and surely no better match could be asked for Gertrude. It could not be that. He was deeply perplexed, and Katherine Foster, with a searching look in her face, kissed him sadly as one might kiss the dead, and went to her daughter's room. She tapped lightly and then said, "It is I, daughter." The girl opened the door and as quickly closed and locked it. Instantly their arms were around each other and both were close to tears. "Don't try to talk, darling," whispered Mrs. Foster, as they sat down upon the couch. "Don't try to talk. I understand better than you do yet, and oh, Gertrude, your mother loves you!" "Yes, mamma," said the girl, hoarsely. "Dear little mamma--poor little mamma, we all love you;" and Mrs. Foster sighed. VIII. The day Gertrude received Avery's letter about bill number 408, she asked her father what the bill was about. He looked at her in surprise, and then at his wife. "I don't know anything about it, child," he said; "Why?" Gertrude drew from her pocket Avery's letter and read that part of it. Her father's face clouded. "What business has he to worry you with his dirty political work? I infer from what he says that it is a bill that I've only heard mentioned once or twice. The sort of thing they do in secret sessions and keep from the newspapers in the main. That is, they are only barely named in the paper and under a number or heading which people don't understand. I'm disgusted with Avery--perfectly!" Gertrude was surprised, but with that ignorance and absolute sincerity of youth, she appealed to her mother. "Mamma, do you see any reason why, from that letter, papa should be vexed with Mr. Avery? It seemed to me to have just the right tone; but I am sorry he did not tell me just what the bill is." "You let me catch him telling you, if it's what I think it is," retorted her father, rather hotly. "It's not fit for your ears. Good women have no business with such knowledge and--" Mrs. Foster held up a warning finger to her daughter, but the girl had not been convinced. "Don't good men know such things, papa? Don't such bills deal with people in a way which will touch women, too? I can't see why you put it that way. If a bill is to be passed into a law, and it is of so vile a nature as you say and as this letter indicates, in whose interest is it to be silent or ignorant? Do you want such a bill passed? Would mamma or I?" Her father laughed, and rose from the table. "It is in the interest of nothing good. No, I should say if you or your mother, or any other respectable mother at all, were in the Legislature, no such bill would have a ghost of a chance; but--" Gertrude's eyes were fixed upon her father. They were very wide open and perplexed.