“Henrietta,” Sophia said gently, and Caroline uttered a stern, “What are you saying?” “I don’t care,” Henrietta said. “Perhaps you’re proud of all the harm he did, but my mother and I had to bear it. He was weak and selfish; we nearly starved, but he didn’t. Oh, no, he didn’t!” With her hands clasped tightly on her knee she bent over the table and her head was lowered with the effect of some small animal prepared for a spring. “Do you know,” she said, “he wore silk shirts? Silk shirts! and I had only one set of underclothing in the world! I had to wash them overnight. That was my father—a Mallett! Were they all like that?” There was silence until Caroline, peeling an apple with trembling fingers, said severely, “I don’t think we need continue this conversation.” Her indignation was beyond mere words; she was outraged; her brother had been insulted by this child who owed his sisters gratitude; the family had been held up to scorn, and Henrietta, aware of what she had done and of her obligations, was overwhelmed with regret, with confusion, with the sense that, after all, it was she who really loved and understood her father. “We will excuse you, Henrietta, if you have finished your dessert,” Caroline said. She had a great dignity. This was a dismissal and Henrietta stood up. She could not take back her words, for they were true: she did not know how to apologize for their manner; she felt she would have to leave the house to-morrow and she had a sudden pride in Aunt Caroline and in her own name. But there was nothing she could do. Most unexpectedly, Rose intervened. “You must forgive Henrietta’s bitterness,” she said quietly. “It is natural.” “But her own father!” Sophia remonstrated tearfully, and added tenderly, “Ah, poor child!” Henrietta dropped into her chair. She wept without concealment. “It isn’t that I didn’t love him,” she sobbed. “Ah, yes, you loved him,” Sophia said. “So did we.” She dabbed her face with her lace handkerchief. “It is Rose who knows nothing about him,” she said, with something approaching anger. “Nothing!” “Perhaps that is why I understand,” Rose said. “No, no, you don’t!” Henrietta cried. She could not admit that. She would not allow Aunt Rose to make such a claim. She looked from Caroline to Sophia. “It’s we who know,” she said. Yes, it was they three who were banded together in love for Reginald Mallett, in their sympathy for each other, in the greater nearness of their relationship to the person in dispute. She looked up, and she saw through her tears a slight quiver pass over the face of Rose and she knew she had hurt her and she was glad of it. “You must forgive me,” she said to Caroline. “Well, well; he was a wretch—a great wretch—a great dear. Let us say no more about it.” It was Rose, now, who was in disgrace, and it was Henrietta, Caroline and Sophia who passed an evening of excessive amiability in the drawing-room.