“No. But--to our shame be it said--reforms are only born of human sacrifice!” she stopped short and looked at the girl. “You have your hat on-- Am I keeping you?” “I was going down to the mill.” “I thought you were not running the mill at night this week.” “We have not been, but the whistle blew just as I came home--I don’t understand it. I thought I had better go down.” “Then, may I walk with you as far as the hotel?” “Surely. I will just speak to Miss Ada--” She came back in an instant, and they set off down the hill together, and the doctor’s daughter was silent. What a night! Peter Parker under her roof, in her dear house; Luke Manders finding him there, and the terrible scene which had ensued, Glory’s death; the bewildering, breath-taking discovery that one might intensely dislike being touched by one person, and then, in the case of another person, not dislike it in the least, but on the contrary---- Mrs. Eugenia Parker was not silent. She talked heartily of conditions of working and living, North, East, South, and West, and paid warm tribute to the fine progress the Old South was making. “And that is why it distresses me so to find my son’s mill--at least, the mill of which he is part owner--so far below standard! Mr. Carey’s cousin, a most charming young widow, Mrs. Tenafee--I daresay you know her? No? Well, she called upon me, and I found her thoroughly awake to the situation. The club women are accomplishing wonders, I understand.” They had reached the entrance to the Bella Vista’s grounds, and halted. “Good night,” said Glen, still with the new gentleness in her voice. But the Federation President continued to talk. It was an exquisite night, windless and still, white beneath a fulling moon, and somewhere in the hotel’s gardens a mocking bird was singing, and the busy and purposeful lady seemed loath to call it a day. “I have not yet visited the mill at night. I believe I shall go down for a little while. Peter is there, and I can come back with him.” So they went forward again, side by side, companionably, Mrs. Eugenia Parker and the young woman who had penned the vitriolic editorial in _The Torch_ about her son. CHAPTER XVIII _Mrs. Eugenia Parker has the doubtful satisfaction of seeing her trifling son in action for the first time._ STILL gently, the doctor’s daughter agreed with the President of the Federated Clubs that conditions of living and laboring were being steadily bettered, that the woman’s vote, already making itself definitely felt, was to be the world’s greatest power for constructive good--this in the lady’s able platform manner--but while she listened with every evidence of well-bred attention, what she really heard was two small speeches which repeated themselves over and over again in her mind and her memory---- “_My father is dead, but he taught me to be a good hater._” “_And I am alive, and I shall teach you to be a good lover!_”