After a while, which seemed a long time to Bee, Moulsey came out with the tray. She was startled, and exclaimed under her breath at the appearance of the girl walking up and down in the corridor: “I did think you would have had the sense to go and join the others, Miss Bee.” Bee was too much uplifted, too distant on her high pinnacle of martyrdom, to make any reply, but when Moulsey ventured to add a word of advice, to the effect that she must be careful of her mamma and not weary her with questions and she so tired and so weak, the girl flashed forth all her heart of indignation. “She has eaten her cutlet, it appears,” cried Bee. “I should think she may answer my questions.” “Oh!” cried the maid, who had the privileges of an old servant, “you have got a heart without pity. You are just like your papa!” Bee swept past her into the room, where poor Mrs. Kingsward, who after all had eaten but a morsel, sat lying back in an easy chair awaiting the dreadful conflict which she knew was coming. Poor lady, she had lost all her brightness, that pretty grace of the young mother among her grown up children, which prompted so many compliments. She lay back in her easy chair, feeling as she said “any age”--as old as any woman on the edge of the grave, not knowing how she was to bear the onslaught that was coming, and how she was to say what had to be said. He had borne it far better than Bee--poor Aubrey, poor Aubrey! whom she must not call Aubrey any more. He had not denied anything, he had fallen as it were at her feet, like a house that had been undermined and had no sound foundations, but Bee was different. Bee was a tower that had foundations--a girl that was able to stand up even to papa, and why--why had he not come to give forth his sentence in his own way? Bee came forward flashing into the light, in that white frock which shone, and with those eyes that blazed through all the neutral tints in the room. She did not sit down, which would have been a little relief, but seized a chair and stood with her hand upon the back, leaning upon it. “I hope, mamma,” she said, pitiless, “that you liked your tea, and ate something--and that you are better now.” “Oh, Bee!” cried the poor lady; “if there is one reproach more dreadful than another it is this of being able to eat when you ought to be overwhelmed with trouble.” Mrs. Kingsward could scarcely keep from crying at the imputation. And Bee, I fear, knew that it was the unkindest thing that could be said.