As it happened there came a letter from Hen Cooney by the same mail that brought mamma's death-dealing one from Mrs. McVey. For Hen, who had never dreamed of corresponding with Cally before, had started up this summer with a long and quite affectionate steamer-letter, and had since written regularly once a week, the newsiest and really the most interesting letters that the Heths got at all. This letter had a private postscript, written on a separate sheet, which said: Cally, I don't know how you'll take it, but I think I ought to tell you frankly how matters stand. Of course there was plenty of talk, especially at first, and some of it was pretty strong. But whether you like it or not, most of the responsibility for what happened is being put on Aunt Isabel. Do you remember Mrs. John S. Adkins who was at the Beach the day it happened? She has told everybody it was Aunt Isabel who came downstairs and told her and others the story that they afterwards repeated. And then, besides, it seems to be generally understood that you were the one who wanted to straighten things out when you had no idea it was too late, and everybody whose opinion is worth having knows it's easy enough to slip into a mistake, but takes a lot of spunk to stand up and say so long afterwards. Good-bye again. Hen. Carlisle removed this postscript, tore it into small pieces, and put the pieces in the waste-basket under a newspaper. Later in the afternoon she had to go into her mother's bedroom to recover a novel which the older lady had abstracted for her own perusal. She found her mother lying on the bed, an open letter in her hand and on her face the marks of rare tears. Carlisle, turning away with her book, hesitated. The two women had not spoken a word all that day. "What's the matter, mamma?" she said constrainedly. Mrs. Heth, stirring a little on the bed, said, with difficulty: "The Associated Charities met to elect new officers. I am--omitted from the board." She added, in a voice from which she could not keep the self-pity: "I should naturally--have been president this year." Her crushed mildness touched Carlisle abruptly. For the first time in all this trouble, perhaps for the first time in her life, she had a considerate and sympathetic thought for her mother. It was mamma, it seemed, upon whom the reprisals of society were to fall most heavily, yet it was she, Cally, who had caused it all. Suppose she had been a good daughter, to begin with; suppose she had even been an obedient daughter, and had kept her own counsel, as mamma had commanded and implored. Ah, how different would have been this ghastly summer!... She walked over to the bed, quite pale, put her hand on her mother's rumpled hair, and said with some agitation: "I'm very sorry to have given you all this trouble, mamma." Mrs. Heth looked up at her, her small eyes winking.