THERE was silence for a moment and then said Josiah: “Talking of Lawyer Mossop—that reminds me. I’m going round to see him. I wonder what time he gets back from his office.” He looked at his watch. “Quarter past five. Bit too soon, I suppose.”

Maria ventured to ask what he wanted Lawyer Mossop for.

Josiah did not answer the question immediately. When he did answer it his voice had such a depth of emotion that both ladies felt as if a knife had been plunged suddenly into their flesh.

“I’m goin’ to take our Sally out of my will.” There was something almost terrible in the sternness and finality of the words.

The depressed lady in puce silk gave a gasp. A moment afterwards large tears began to drip freely from her eyes.

Aunt Gerty sat very upright on a satinwood chair, her hands folded in front of her, and two prominent teeth showing beyond a line of extremely firm lips. She didn’t speak.

“Nice thing”—each word was slowly distilled from a feeling of outrage that was almost unbearable—“to be made the talk and the mark of the whole city. And after what I’ve done for that gel! School—college—France—Germany—your advice, you know, Gerty——”

Aunt Gerty didn’t speak.

“And then she comes home and gets herself six weeks’ hard labor. Hard labor, mark you!”

Both ladies shivered audibly.

“Nice thing for a man who has always kept himself up, to have his daughter pitchin’ brick ends through the windows of the Houses o’ Parliament, to say nothin’ of assaulting the police. Gerty, that comes of higher education.”

Still Aunt Gerty didn’t speak.

“Fact is, women ain’t ripe for higher education. It goes to their heads. But I’ll let her see. In a few minutes I’ll be off round to Lawyer Mossop.”

“But—Josiah!” ventured a quavering voice.

“Not a word, Mother. My mind’s made up. That gel has fairly made the name o’ Munt stink in the nostrils of the nation. Not ten minutes ago that rotten little dog Bill Hollis flung it in my teeth as I came in at the front gate. The little wastrel happened to be passing and he called after me, ‘Sally out of Quod yet?’ One o’ these days I’ll quod him—the little skunk—or Josiah Munt J.P. is not my name.”

Maria continued to weep copiously but in silence. She dare not make her grief vocal with the stern eye of her husband upon her. The tragedy of her eldest girl’s defiance, now sixteen years old, was still green in her memory. Josiah had given Amelia plainly to understand that if she married William Hollis he would never speak to her again and he had kept his word. Maria had not got over it even yet; and now their youngest girl, Sally, on whose upbringing a fabulous sum had been lavished, had disgraced them in the sight of everybody.

Josiah was meting out justice no doubt, but mothers are apt to be irrational where their offspring are concerned; and had Maria been able to muster the courage she would have broken a lance with him, even now, in this matter of the youngest girl. But she was afraid of him. And she knew he was in the right. Sally’s name had appeared in all the papers. That morning, by a cruel stroke, they had come out with her portrait—Miss Sarah Ann Munt, youngest daughter of Alderman Munt J.P. of Blackhampton, sentenced to six weeks hard labor. Yes, it was cruel! It would take her father a long time to get over it. And for Maria herself, it was like the loss in infancy of the young Josiah; it was a thing she would always remember but never quite be able to grasp.

The silence grew intolerable. At last it was broken by Gertrude Preston.

“You’ll be having splendid roses, Josiah—next year.” Those mincing tones, quite cool and untroubled, somehow did wonders. Josiah had always been a noted rose grower and as his sister-in-law pointed elegantly to the rows of young bushes beyond the drawing-room windows something in him began to respond. After all that was his great asset as a human entity: the power to react strongly and readily to the many things in which he was interested.

“Aye,” he said, almost gratefully. “Next year they’ll be a sight. I’ve had a double course o’ manure put down.”

“I hope there’ll be some of my favorite Gloire de Dijons,” said Gerty with fervor.

“You bet there will be. There’s a dozen bushes over yond. By the way, Gert, you’re comin’ to the show to-morrow week.”

Miss Preston, for all her enthusiasm for roses, was not sure that she could get to the show. But Josiah informed her that she would have to come. And he enforced his command by taking a leather case from his breast pocket and producing a small blue card on which was printed:

“That’ll get you in, Gert.” The card was placed in her hand. “Come and stand by Maria and keep her up to it.”

Had Maria dared she would have groaned dismally. As it was she had to be content with a slight gesture of dismay.

“You see it’ll be a bit o‘ practice for her. In 1916—the year after next—she’ll be the Mayoress.”

The lady in puce silk shuddered audibly.

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