She reflected a moment, pausing halfway down the stairs, while her mother watched her swollen and tear-stained face. "We might send Susan away for the evening," suggested the mother. "Yes," assented the daughter. "Papa could take her with him for a drive to North Sutherland--to see the Provosts. Then Sam'd come straight on to the Sinclairs'." "I'll call up your father." "No!" cried Ruth, stamping her foot. "Call up Mr. Provost, and tell him papa's coming. Then you can talk with papa when he gets home to dinner." "But maybe----" "If that doesn't work out we can do something else this afternoon." The mother and the daughter avoided each other's eyes. Both felt mean and small, guilty toward Susan; but neither was for that reason disposed to draw back. As Mrs. Warham was trying the new dress on her daughter, she said: "Anyhow, Sam'd be wasting time on Susan. He'd hang round her for no good. She'd simply get talked about. The poor child can't be lively or smile but what people begin to wonder if she's going the way of--of Lorella." "That's so," agreed Ruth, and both felt better. "Was Aunt Lorella _very_ pretty, mamma?" "Lovely!" replied Fanny, and her eyes grew tender, for she had adored Lorella. "You never saw such a complexion--like Susan's, only snow-white." Nervously and hastily, "Most as fine as yours, Ruthie." Ruth gazed complacently into the mirror. "I'm glad I'm fair, and not big," said she. "Yes, indeed! I like the womanly woman. And so do men." "Don't you think we ought to send Susan away to visit somewhere?" asked Ruth at the next opportunity for talk the fitting gave. "It's getting more and more--pointed--the way people act. And she's so sweet and good, I'd hate to have her feelings hurt." In a burst of generosity, "She's the most considerate human being I ever knew. She'd give up anything rather than see someone else put out. She's too much that way." "We can't be too much that way," said Mrs. Warham in mechanical Christian reproof. "Oh, I know," retorted Ruth, "that's all very well for church and Sundays. But I guess if you want to get along you've got to look out for Number One. . . . Yes, she ought to visit somewhere." "I've been trying to think," said her mother. "She couldn't go any place but your Uncle Zeke's. But it's so lonesome out there I haven't the heart to send her. Besides, she wouldn't know what to make of it." "What'd father say?" "That's another thing." Mrs. Warham had latterly grown jealous--not without reason--of her husband's partiality for Susan. Ruth sighed. "Oh, dear!" cried she. "I don't know what to do. How's she ever going to get married!" "If she'd only been a boy!" said Mrs. Warham, on her knees, taking the unevenness out of the front of the skirt. "A girl has to suffer for her mother's sins."