"Really, mother, you may read all my letters if you wish to. But I think I might be allowed to see them first. I am twenty-four, old enough, therefore, to get my correspondence uncensored." "You are my daughter, Janet, and if you were forty-four instead of twenty-four, it would still be my duty to guard you against evil influences, and to look after your spiritual welfare." "I don’t see how your spiritual guardianship affects my legal right to my own letters." She added scornfully: "Am I to consider Emily as one of my moral guardians, too?" Janet was not easily aroused. When she was, she spoke in low cold tones that irritated her listeners more than the sharpest abuse. "I read the first sentence accidentally—" began Emily indignantly. Mrs. Barr interrupted her. "You know quite well that I have made it a rule not to interfere with your correspondence," she said, acridly. "But I consider that what Emily saw by chance justified me in making this case an exception, especially as you have been so diligent lately in wasting the Lord’s time." This was a pet phrase of Mrs. Barr’s. "I don’t understand the charge," said Janet, like a prisoner in the dock. "I refer to your recent godless behavior." "Godless!" "You know quite well what I mean: your flagrant absence from services, your irreverent remarks when a religious topic is discussed, your readiness to put frivolous pleasures before church duties, and your studied avoidance of all the friends of the family." "Except Robert Lloyd," interjected Emily, pointedly. "Why drag in Robert?" said Janet, flashing a look at her sister. "You got mamma to forbid him the house a whole month ago." "I had every reason to believe Mr. Lloyd to be an atheist," said Mrs. Barr, who thus concisely classified all disbelievers in revealed creeds. "That is why I requested you not to invite him here again." "Leaving me to the edifying companionship of Emily’s stuffy pedagogue friends," said Janet, in a white heat. "We needn’t pursue that matter now, Janet. What I wish to say at present is merely that a masked ball is out of the question. A masked ball! What are you thinking of, my child? Not to say that the invitation comes from people who are perfectly impossible." "Impossible!" cried Janet, bursting out under terrible pressure. "They’re quite possible for me. Do you expect me to chum up with Emily’s high school cats, or the old maids from the King’s daughters, or the decrepit old ladies from your missionary club?" Her mother fairly reeled at the impudence of the attack.