"Kitty!" she exclaimed. "Now I shall _never_ forgive you! I will _never_ have Bridget in this kitchen again! It wasn't only that she drank, it was her awful, awful deceitfulness. It was that, Kitty, more than anything else. I _won't_ have people about me who will not live up to the tariff poor dear Tom worked and worried to make! _You_ may smuggle, Kitty, if you must be so low, and I certainly have no control over Billy, but my servants must not break the rules of this house. If that Bridget dares to put her head inside of this door I will send her about her business." "Laura," said Kitty, "I wish you would be reasonable--like Billy and me. We talked it all over on the way to church, and we saw that it was Tom's crazy old tariff that was making all the trouble and driving Bridget away and everything, and we decided we would stop the tariff right away." Laura's chin went into the air and her eyes flashed. "_You_ will stop the tariff!" she cried, turning red. "What right have _you_ to stop anything in this house, Kitty? And it isn't a crazy tariff. It was a splendid idea, and no one but Tom would ever have thought of it, and it worked all right until you and Billy began spoiling it!" "But I thought you wanted it stopped," said Kitty. "I don't!" exclaimed Laura, bursting into tears. "It is a nice, lovely tariff, and if I ever said I didn't want it, it was because you aggravated me. I won't have it stopped. I won't be so mean to anything dear old Tom starts. It's Bobberts' tariff. You ought to think more of Bobberts than to suggest such a thing, if you don't love me." Kitty stood back and looked at Laura as at some one possessed of evil spirits. Then she turned to the table and took up the potato knife and began slicing potatoes calmly. "Very well, Laura," she said. "I tried to do what I thought you would like, but if you want the tariff so badly I shall certainly not oppose you. Hereafter, no matter what happens, Billy and I will vote for the tariff!" "And Tom and I certainly will," said Laura between sobs. "We don't care _who_ the tariff bothers, or _how_ much trouble it is. We are always, always going to have a tariff--for ever and ever!" When she told Mr. Fenelby this he was not as happy about it as might have been expected. He agreed that under the circumstances there was nothing else to do; that the tariff must become a permanent fixture; but he did not say so joyfully. He had more the air of a Job admitting that a continued succession of boils was inevitable. Job, under those circumstances was probably as placid as could be expected, but not hilarious, and neither was Mr. Fenelby.