"Well, where is the bag you bought with it?" Evasion had so often been Eleanor's sole weapon of defense that she seized it now. "I--I haven't bought it yet," she faltered; then she added weakly: "I haven't seen any I particularly cared about." "You still have the money?" "Well--I've spent some of it." "How much?" "I don't know that I remember exactly." Madam's lip curled. "Perhaps I can stimulate your memory," she said, running her fingers through a bunch of canceled checks. "Here is the check I gave you, indorsed to Rose Martel." Eleanor flushed crimson. The imputation of untruthfulness was one to which she was particularly sensitive. Her fear of her grandmother had taught her early in life to take refuge in subterfuge, a shelter that she heartily despised but which she still clung to. In her desire to meet Rose's imperative need, she had passed her gift on to her, with the intention of saving enough from her own allowance to get the mesh bag later. The fact that the canceled check would be returned to her grandmother had never occurred to her. "So _that's_ where my money has been going!" cried Madam. "They've succeeded in working me through you, have they? Just as they succeeded in working Ranny through Quinby Graham." "No--no, grandmother! Please listen! They have never asked me for a penny. But when I found out the terrible time they'd been having, the children sick all summer and Cass down with typhoid--why, if it hadn't been for Quin----" "So they sponged on him too, did they? He's a bigger fool than I gave him credit for being." "But they _didn't_ sponge. He is Cass's best friend, and he was glad to help. He and Rose did all the nursing themselves." "Yes, I heard about it. In the house alone for six weeks. That doesn't speak very well for her reputation." "Grandmother! You've no right to say that! Rose may talk recklessly and do foolish things, but she wouldn't do anything wrong for the world." "Well, if she did, she wouldn't be the first member of her family to compromise a man so that he had to marry her." "What do you mean?" demanded Eleanor, quivering with indignation. "That's neither here nor there," said Madam. "There's enough rottenness in the present without raking up the past. But one thing is certain: if they ask you for money again----" "I tell you, they didn't ask me!" "Not in so many words, perhaps, but they worked on your sympathies. I know them! As for Claude Martel, he would want nothing better than have you traveling around in some Punch and Judy show. But I scotched that nonsense once and for all. As for their bleeding you for money,"--she rose and crushed the check in her hand,--"I guess I know a way to stop that." Eleanor rose too, and faced her. She was very pale now, her anger having reached a white heat. "My mother's people may be poor," she said deliberately, "but they aren't beggars, and at least they've come by what they have honestly."