"Mamma," said Cally, in a strained voice, "what on earth are you talking about? I want to understand. What did that money you gave to the Settlement have to do--"
"Don't you know he needed it for his business?" cried mamma, advancing menacingly. "I tell you he'd put it by to spend it on the Works this fall, and stop these attacks on him. And why did I have to take it from him, but on your account, miss?--to try to clear the family name from the scandal you brought upon us--"
"What?"
"A scandal," continued mamma, in a crescendo sweep, "that all but undid my lifework for the family's position, and that may yet cost your father his presidency at the bank."
The good lady easily saw that she had struck the right punitive note at last. Indeed, the question now, Cally's peculiarities being considered, was whether she had not struck it rather too hard. The girl's face had suddenly become the color of paper. The intense concentration of her gaze was painful in its way, slightly disconcerting to mamma.
"Do you mean," said Cally, in quite a shaky voice--"do you say that papa--meant to improve the Works this fall--and that you--that I--"
"I mean exactly what I say," said Mrs. Heth, resolutely. "And I say it's high time you were beginning to understand your position in this family, as a guide to your strange behavior. Do you suppose your father enjoys being under attack all the time? Haven't you heard him say a hundred times, that it was bad business to let things go at the Works? Where were you six years ago when he said we'd have to economize and put up a new building, and I prevented him for your sake, arguing that you were just coming out and were entitled to--"
"Six years!... Why ... why, then I'm responsible for it all!... Why--I've been on his back all the time!"
"I'm glad you realize it at last.... Oh, well!" said her mother, throwing out both hands and speaking with a kind of gruff tolerance,--"there's no use to cry about it."
"I'm not crying," said Cally.