Mrs. Spragg came forward deprecatingly to lift the cloak from her
daughter's shoulders.

"I just HAD to, Undie--I told father I HAD to. I wanted to hear all
about it."

Undine shrugged away from her. "Mercy! At this hour? You'll be as white
as a sheet to-morrow, sitting up all night like this."

She moved toward the toilet-table, and began to demolish with feverish
hands the structure which Mrs. Heeny, a few hours earlier, had so
lovingly raised. But the rose caught in a mesh of hair, and Mrs. Spragg,
venturing timidly to release it, had a full view of her daughter's face
in the glass.

"Why, Undie, YOU'RE as white as a sheet now! You look fairly sick.
What's the matter, daughter?"

The girl broke away from her.

"Oh, can't you leave me alone, mother? There--do I look white NOW?" she
cried, the blood flaming into her pale cheeks; and as Mrs. Spragg
shrank back, she added more mildly, in the tone of a parent rebuking a
persistent child: "It's enough to MAKE anybody sick to be stared at that
way!"

Mrs. Spragg overflowed with compunction. "I'm so sorry, Undie. I guess
it was just seeing you in this glare of light."

"Yes--the light's awful; do turn some off," ordered Undine, for whom,