And now, here she stood, the fire of life stirring her blood, the long arm of her mother’s power fettering her movements. If only she were in Emily’s shoes! Emily had been sent to college and had later achieved economic independence in the profession of high school teacher. But Emily had always had an instinct for taking care of herself. Janet wished she had half her sister’s practical sense, and bitterly reproached herself for having been fool enough to yield to her mother’s hankering after gentility. It was Mrs. Barr’s belief that the family prestige would fall irrecoverably below the rarified heights where the Cabots or the Saltonstalls were presumed to move, unless one daughter, at least, was kept free from the lower class stigma of earning her own living. Thus, under pressure, Janet had stayed home to become a fine lady, although the limited circumstances of the Barrs obliged her, in effect, to become a domestic servant. For a year past, however, she had been laying desperate plans for going out on her own. "Hello, little girl, good morning!" interrupted a cheery voice at her side. "Good morning, father," replied Janet, to a tall, well-preserved, stately man who kissed her very affectionately. "Your mother sent for me, Janet," said Mr. Barr anxiously. "What’s the matter?" "I’m the matter. She has been pitching into me for receiving an invitation to a masked ball. _I’ve been wasting the Lord’s time_!" "Did she blow you up?" "Down, father, down. I feel very small, I can tell you." Janet was of too cheerful a temperament to be sad very long. She and her father habitually exchanged death-cell jests, and even her present gloom was not too thick to be dispelled with a quip. Her father burst into a loud and hearty laugh which he moderated considerably on remembering that he still had his wife to face. His camel-like virtues, which had carried him tolerably far in business—he was manager of a small branch of the Wheat Exchange Bank—had not saved him from being a thorough nincompoop at home. Mr. Barr had the form of a patrician but the spirit of an obedient slave. Janet despised him for his complete submission to his wife, yet she had one bond of sympathy with him. Though he dared not raise hand or voice against the system of vetoes and taboos under which the Barr family lived, he disliked the system and understood her hatred of it. Janet often wondered whether he was not the passive carrier of some rebellious British strain which, in herself, took the shape of active insurgency against Mrs. Barr’s American passion for denying the body and mortifying the soul. "Mother is waiting for you upstairs," she said, trying to feel sorry for him. "She means to give you a scathing address on the moral failings of your youngest daughter." "I suppose _I’ll_ get a piece of her mind, too." "Depend upon it. The same old _piece_ that passeth understanding."