“Edna, where are you?”

“Here, mother.”

“You heard me calling you; why did you not answer?”

“I have answered by coming to you. How is Mr. Hope?”

“In a dreadfully nervous state. He thinks he is not hurt, but I am sure he has been injured internally, which is far worse than outward wounds, as I told him. He seems to be strung on wires, and jumps every time his wife makes the most casual remark to him. I advised him to see a physician, and know the worst at once. And Mrs. Hope tells me he acts very queerly. He took scarcely any breakfast this morning yet before lunch he ordered into the study a simply enormous meal, and devoured it all alone.”

“Perhaps that was because he had taken so little breakfast.”

“No, child, you don’t know what you are talking about. There are some things Mr. Hope can never touch without being ill afterwards. Mrs. Hope is very careful of his diet. There’s pickles, for instance; he hasn’t touched a pickle for sixteen years, yet to-day he consumed a great quantity, and drank a whole bottle of beer, besides roast beef and cheese, and ever so many other things. Mrs. Hope, poor woman, is sitting with folded hands, waiting for him to die. I never saw such a look of heavenly resignation on any human face before.”

“As on Mr.. Hope’s?”

“Edna, don’t be pert. You know very well I mean Mrs. Hope.”

“Really, mother, I didn’t. I thought perhaps Mr. Hope was resigned. What does he say?”

“He says it hasn’t hurt him in the least, but Mrs. Hope merely sighs and shakes her head. She knows what is in store for him.”

“I’ll warrant the poor man was just hungry, and tired of too much dieting. I hope he enjoyed his meal.”

“Edna, you have too little experience, and, much as I regret to say it, too little sense to understand what it means. Mr. Hope’s digestive organs have always been weak—always. If it had not been for his wife’s anxious care, he would have been dead long ago. She allowed him out of her sight for a few minutes this morning, and refused all callers, except myself and one or two of her own very dearest friends, and you see what happened. She fears that the excitement of yesterday has completely ruined his nerves, and that he doesn’t know what he is doing, although he insists he feels as well as ever he did; but I said to Mrs. Hope I would have the best medical advice at once if I were in her place. Who was it called here to see your father while I was away?”

“I have not been in the house since you left.”

“What! In the garden all this time! Edna, when will you learn to have some responsibility? How can you expect the maids to do their duty if you neglect yours and never look after them?”

“You train them so well, mother, that I did not think it was necessary for me to look after them while you were away.”

“Yes, I train them, and, I hope, I do my duty towards them; but you also have duties to perform, although you think so lightly of them. You forget that for every hour idled away you will have to give an account on the Last Great Day.”

“I have not been idling, and, even if I had, one can’t be always thinking of the Last Great Day.”

They had by this time reached the drawing-room, and Mrs. Sartwell sat down, gazing with chastened severity at her step-daughter.

“Edna,” she said, solemnly, “I implore you not to give way to flippancy. That is exactly the way your father talks, and while, let us hope, it will be forgiven him, it ill becomes one of your years to take that tone. Your father little thinks what trouble he is storing for himself in his training of you, and, if I told him you were deceiving him, he would not believe it. But some day, alas! his eyes will be opened.”

“How am I deceiving him?” cried Edna, a quick pallour coming into her face.

Her step-mother mournfully shook her head, and sighed.

“If your own heart does not tell you, then perhaps I should be silent. You have his wicked temper, my poor child. Your face is pale with anger just because I have mildly tried to show you the right path.”

“You have not shown me the right path. You have said I am deceiving my father, and I ask what you mean?”

Mrs. Sartwell smiled gently, if sadly.

“How like! how like! I can almost fancy it is your father speaking with your voice.”

“Well, I am glad of that. You don’t often say complimentary things to me.”

“That is more of your pertness. You know very well I don’t compliment you when I say you are like your father. Far from it. But a day will come when even his eyes will be opened. Yes, indeed.”

“You mean that his eyes will be opened to my deceit, but you have not told me how I am deceiving him.”

“You deceive him because you take very good care, when in his presence, not to show him the worst side of your character. Oh, dear no, you take good care of that! Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth when he is here. But he’ll find you out some day, to his sorrow. Wait till your stubborn wills cross, and then you will each know the other. Of course, now it is all smooth and pleasant, but that is because you don’t demand to know what he means, and do not tell him that you can’t be bothered about the Last Great Day.”

“Father never threatens me with the Judgment, as you so often do, nor does he make accusations against me, and so I don’t need to ask what he means. I suppose I am wicked,” continued the girl, almost in tears, “but you say things that seem always to bring out the bad side of my character.”

“You are too impulsive,” said the lady, smoothly. “You are first impenitently impudent to me, and then you, say you have a bad character, which I never asserted. You are not worse than your father.”

“Worse? I only wish I were half as good.”

“Ah, that’s because you don’t know him any better than he knows you. You think he takes you entirely into his confidence, but he does nothing of the sort. Why did he so carefully carry away the newspaper with him this morning?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Why shouldn’t he? it’s his own.”

“His own,—yes! but he never did it before. He took it away the better to deceive his wife and daughter,—that’s why. So that we shouldn’t know how he braved and defied the men yesterday. Oh, I can see him! It was just the kind of thing that would gratify his worldly pride.”

“Oh, what happened, mother?” cried the girl, breathless with anxiety.

“I thought he didn’t tell you, and I suppose he did not mention that poor Mr. Hope, and Mr. Monkton too, begged and implored him not to go to the works to-day,—yes, almost on their bended knees; and he paid not the slightest attention to their wishes—and they his employers! If for no other reason he——”

“But tell me what he did? How did he defy the men?”

“Why do you not allow me to finish what I am saying? Why are you so impatient?”

“Because he is my father. Is that not reason enough?”

“Yes, my poor child, yes,” murmured Mrs. Sartwell, in mournful cadence, “that is reason enough. Like father, like daughter. It is perhaps too much for me to expect patience from you, when he has so little.”

“That is not my meaning, but never mind. Please tell me if he was in danger.”

“We are all of us in danger every moment of our lives, and saved from it by merciful interposition and not by any virtue of our puny efforts. How often, how often have I made my poor endeavour to impress this great truth on your father’s mind, only to be met with scorn and scoffing, as if scorn and scoffing would avail on the Last——Why are you acting so, Edna? You pace up and down the room in a way that is—I regret to say it—most unladylike. You shouldn’t spring from your chair in that abrupt manner. I say that scoffing will not avail. Surely I have a right to make the statement in my own house! When I said to your father this very morning that he should not boast in his own strength, which is but fleeting, but should put his trust in a higher power, he answered that he did—the police were on the ground. What is that but scoffing? He knew I was not referring to the police.”

Edna had left the room before her step-mother completed the last sentence, and when the much-tried woman, arising with a weary sigh, followed the girl into the hall, she found herself confronted with another domestic tribulation. Edna had her hat on, and was clasping her cloak.

“Where are you going?” asked her amazed stepmother.

“To London.”

“To London! Does your father know of this?”

“He will. I am going to take a hansom from the station to the works.”

“What! Drive through that howling mob?”

“The howling mob won’t hurt me.”

“Child, you are crazy! What is the meaning of this?”

“The meaning is that I am going to hear what danger my father was in yesterday, and to be with him if he is in danger to-day:”

The good woman held up her hands in helpless dismay. Was ever human being, anxious to do her duty to all, harassed by two such ungovernable persons since the world began?—she asked herself. But for once she made exactly the remark to cope with the situation.

“The time has come sooner than I expected. Your father has forbidden you to go to the office, and, when he sees that you have disobeyed him at such a time as this, he will be furious. Then you will know what I have to stand.”

The impetuous girl paused in her preparations.

“Then why do you exasperate me beyond endurance by refusing to tell me what happened?”

“I refuse! I refuse you nothing. Better would it have been for me if I had when you were younger; then you would think twice before you flung all obedience to the winds. You have only to ask what you want to know, and listen with patience while it is told to you.”

“I have asked you a dozen times.”

“How you do exaggerate! I call it exaggeration, although I might perhaps be forgiven for using a harsher term. Exactitude of statement is more——”

“Will you tell me, or shall I go?”

“Have I not just said that I will tell you anything? What is it you want to know? Your own ridiculous conduct has driven everything out of my head.”

“You said my father had defied the men and was in danger yesterday.”

“Oh, that! After seeing the police guard Mr. Hope and Mr. Monkton through the lawless mob, what must your father do but show how brave he was compared with his superiors. He came out of the gates alone, and walked through the mob.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything.”

“Then how did he defy the men?”

“Good gracious, child, how stupid you are! When men are driven to extremities, surely his coming out among them—and he the cause of it all—was defiance enough. But a full account is in the paper I bought at the station; it is on the hall table, where you would have seen it if you could have kept your temper. Read it if you want to. It is not me you are disobeying when you do so. Remember, it was your father who did not want you to see the paper.”

The day proved a long one to Edna Sartwell, and, when her father did not return at the usual hour, she became more and more anxious. Her step-mother said nothing about the delay, as the hours passed, but began to assume that air of patient resignation which became her so well. Dinner was served to the minute, and at the accustomed moment the table was cleared. Once or twice she chided Edna for her restlessness, and regretted she had to speak, but was compelled to do so because the good example she herself set was so palpably unappreciated. At last she said:

“Edna, go to bed. I will wait up for your father.”

“He is sure to be home soon. Please let me wait until he comes.”

There was silence for a few minutes.

“I don’t wish to ask you twice, Edna. You heard what I said.”

“Please do not send me away until father comes. I am so anxious! Let me sit up instead of you. I can’t sleep if I do go to bed. Won’t you let me sit up in your place?”

The martyred look came into the thin face of her step-mother—the look which told of trials uncomplainingly borne.’

“I have always sat up for your father, and always shall, so long as we are spared to each other. For the third time I ask you to go to bed.”

The girl sat where she was, the red flag of rebellion in her cheek. The glint of suppressed anger in Mrs. Sartwell’s eye showed that a point had been reached where one or the other of them had to leave the room defeated. The elder woman exhibited her forbearance by speaking in the same level tone throughout.

“Do you intend to obey me, Edna?”

“No, I do not.”

Mrs. Sartwell went on with her sewing, a little straighter in the back, perhaps, but not otherwise visibly disturbed by the unjustifiable conduct of the girl. In each instance after Edna’s prompt replies there was silence for a few moments.

“In the earlier part of the day, Edna, you permitted yourself to speak to me and act towards me in a manner which I hoped you would regret when opportunity for reflection was given. I expected some expression of contrition from you. Have you reflected, Edna?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Sartwell threaded her needle with almost excessive deliberation.

“And what has been the result?”

“That I was pleased to think I had said nothing harsher than I did.”

The ticking of the tall clock on the landing echoed through the house. Edna listened intently for a quick, firm step on the gravel, but all outside was silent.

“Added to your—if I use the word insolence, it is because I can think of no other term with which to characterize the remarks you have addressed to me—added to your insolence is now disobedience. If I am overstating, the case, no one can be more pleased than I to be corrected, in the proper spirit.”

“I have no desire to correct you.”

After nipping the thread with her teeth and drawing a deep, wavering sigh, Mrs. Sartwell said:

“In every household, Edna, some one must command and others obey. When my time comes I shall gladly lay down the burden of what poor authority is delegated to me, but until that time comes I shall be mistress in my own house. Your father freely, and of his own choice, gave me that authority, and he, not you, is the proper person to revoke it, if it pleases him to do so. I shall therefore say nothing more until he returns. Then he must choose between us. If you are to be mistress here, I shall bow my head without a word, and leave this house, praying that peace and every blessing may remain within it.”

Something of the self-sacrificing resignation breathing through these measured words must have touched the hardened heart of the girl, for she buried her face in her hands and began to weep,—a certain sign of defeat. But she evidently determined not to give her antagonist the satisfaction fairly won by so admirable a dissertation upon the correct conduct of a well-ordered household.

“It is always poor father!” she sobbed. “With all the trouble and anxiety already on his mind, he must be worried when he comes home by our miserable squabbles.”

“I never squabble, Edna. Neither do I ever use such an undignified word. Where you got it, I’m sure I do not know, but it was not from me. If you wish your father not to be troubled, then you should act so that it would not be necessary to appeal to him. It is no wish of mine to add to his cares,—far otherwise. Are you ready to obey me now?”

“Yes.”

The girl rose and went rather uncertainly to the door, her eyes filled with tears.

“You have not kissed me good-night, Edna.”

She kissed her step-mother on the cheek and went to her room, flinging herself, dressed as she was, on her bed, sobbing. Yet she listened for that step on the gravel which did not come. At last she rose, arranged her hair for the night, and bathed her face, so that her father, if he came home and saw her, should not know she had been crying. Wrapping herself in her dressing-gown, she sat by the window and listened intently and anxiously. It was after midnight when the last train came in, and some minutes later her quick ear heard the long-expected step far down the street; but it was not the quick, nervous tread she was accustomed to. It was the step of a tired man. She thought of softly calling to him from the window, but did not. Holding her door ajar, she heard the murmur of her step-mother’s voice and occasionally the shorter, gruffer note of her father’s evidently monosyllabic replies. After what seemed an interminable time, her stepmother came up alone, and the door of her room closed.

Edna, holding her breath, slipped noiselessly out of her room and down the stairs. The steps were kind to her, and did not creak. She opened the door of the dining-room, and appeared as silently as if she were a ghost. Her father started from his chair, and it required all his habitual self-command to repress the exclamation that rose to his lips.

“Heaven help us, my dearest girl; do you want to frighten your old father out of what little wits he has left him?” he whispered.. “Why aren’t you asleep?” She gently closed the door, then ran to him, and threw her arms about his neck.

“Oh, father, are you safe? You are not hurt?”

“Hurt! Why, what would hurt me, you silly baby?” He ruffled her hair, pulling it over her eyes. “You’ve been dreaming; I believe you are talking in your sleep now. Why are you not in bed?”

“I couldn’t sleep till you came home. What kept you so late, father?”

“Now this is more than the law requires of a man. Have I to make explanations to two women every night I come home by the late train?”

The girl sat down on a hassock, and laid her head on her father’s knee, he smoothing her hair caressingly.

“What is all this pother about, Edna? Why are you so anxious at my being out late?”

“I was afraid you were in danger; I read what was said in the paper about your defying the men, and—and——”

Sartwell laughed quietly.

“My dear girl, if you are going to begin life by believing all you see in the papers, you will have an uneasy time of it. I can tell you something much more startling which has not yet appeared in print.”

“What is that, father?” asked the girl, looking up at him.

“That you have been a most unruly child all day, causing deep anxiety to those responsible for your upbringing.”

Edna sank her head again upon her father’s knee.

“Yes,” she said, “that is quite true. I have been dreadfully wicked and rebellious, saying things I ought not to have said.”

“And leaving unsaid the things,—ah well, none of us is quite perfect. It is a blessing there is such a thing as forgiveness of sins, otherwise most of us would come badly off.”

“Somehow, when you are here, nothing seems to matter, and any worries of the day appear small and trivial, and I wonder why they troubled me; but when you are away—well, it’s different altogether.”

“That is very flattering to me, Edna, but you mustn’t imagine I’m to be cajoled into omitting the scolding you know you deserve. No, I can see through your diplomacy. It won’t do, my dear girl, it won’t do.”

“It isn’t diplomacy or flattery; it’s true. I’ll take my scolding most meekly if you tell me what happened to-day.”

“I refuse to bargain with a confessed rebel; still, as I must get you off to bed before morning, I will tell you what happened. An attempt was made to settle the strike to-day. The men had a meeting to-night, and I waited at my club to hear the outcome. I had a man at the meeting who was to bring me the result of the vote as soon as it was taken. A young man—one of the strikers, but the only man of brains among them—saw me this afternoon, and made certain proposals that I accepted. Gibbons was to be renounced, and a deputation of the men was to come to me. We should probably have settled the matter in ten minutes, if it had come off.”

“Then he failed, after all his trouble?”

“Who failed?”

“The—the young man you speak of?”

Edna found her rÔle of deceiver a difficult one. She was glad her father could not see her face, and bitterly regretted giving Marsten a promise not to tell of his visit.

“Yes, he failed. Of course there was not time to canvass the men properly, and at the meeting Gibbons, who is a glib talker, won over enough to defeat the efforts of the others. It wasn’t much of a victory, but sufficient for the purpose. They had, I understand, a very stormy meeting, and Gibbons won by some dozen votes or thereabouts.”

“And what is to be done now?”

“Oh, we are just where we were. I’ll wait a few days more, and, if the men do not come back, I’ll fill their places with a new lot. I don’t want to do that except as a last resort, but I won’t be played with very much longer. Now, dear girl, you know all about it; so to bed, to bed, at once, and sleep soundly. This dissipation cannot be allowed, you know.”

He kissed her and patted her affectionately on the shoulder. The girl, with a guilty feeling in her heart, crept up stairs as noiselessly as she had descended.