"Brownie," he reproached, "you mustn't deceive.

Go to your aunt." She found her aunt seated stiffly in the living-room, her hands folded upon her stomach.

So gradual had been the crucial middle-life change in Fanny that no one had noted it.

This evening Susan, become morbidly acute, suddenly realized the contrast between the severe, uncertain-tempered aunt of today and the amiable, altogether and always gentle aunt of two years before.
"What is it, aunt ?" she said, feeling as if she were before a stranger and an enemy.
"The whole town is talking about your disgraceful doings this morning," Ruth's mother replied in a hard voice.
The color leaped in Susan's cheeks.
"Yesterday I forbade you to see Sam Wright again.

And already you disobey." "I did not say I would not see him again," replied Susan.
"I thought you were an honest, obedient girl," cried Fanny, the high shrill notes in her voice rasping upon the sensitive, the now morbidly sensitive, Susan.