the house, she took up a position in the hall, leaning against the wall, near the door.  She could hear every word, but she was quite out of sight.  She leaned heavily against the wall, for her limbs trembled under her, and she could scarcely stand.  Her aunt had looked around as she entered, and a question as to where she had been had shaped itself on her lips:  then her look of inquiry and relief had died away in her expression of bitter concentration upon the matter in hand.  She had been alarmed about Charlotte, as they had all been.  Mrs. Carroll had called softly down the stairs to know if Charlotte had come, and the girl had answered, “Yes, Amy dear.”

“Where have you been, dear?” asked the soft voice, from an indistinct mass of floating white at the head of the stairs.

“I’ll tell you by-and-by, Amy dear.”

“I was alarmed about you,” said the voice, “it was so late; about you and Eddy.”

“He has come, too.”

“Yes, I heard him.”  Then the voice added, quite distinctly petulant, “I have a headache, but it is so noisy I cannot get to sleep.”  Then there was a rustle of retreat, and Charlotte leaned against the wall, listening to the hushed turmoil surmounted by that voice of accusation in the parlor.  Eddy stood full in the doorway, in a boyish, swaggering attitude, his hands on his hips, and bent slightly, with sharp eyes of intense enjoyment on Minna Eddy.  Suddenly, Carroll turned and caught sight of him, and as if perforce the boy’s eyes turned to meet his father’s.  Carroll did not speak, but he raised his hand and pointed to the hall with an upward motion for the stairs, and Eddy went, with a faint whimper of remonstrance.  The scolding woman saw the little, retreating figure, and directly the torrent of her vituperation was turned into a new course.

“You, you, you!” she proclaimed; “dressin’ your boy up in fine clothes, while mine children have went in rags since you have came to Banbridge!  You, you, you! gettin’ all my man’s money, and dressin’ up your boy in clothes that I haf paid for!  You, you, you!”

But Minna Eddy had unwittingly furnished the right key-note for a whole chorus.  Madame Griggs, who had been rocking jerkily in a small, red-plush chair which squeaked faintly, sprang up, and left it still rocking and squeaking.

“Yes,” said she, “yes, that is so.  Look at the way the whole family dress, at other people’s expense!”

She was hysterical still, yet she had not lost her sense of the gentility of self-restraint.  That would come later.  Her face worked convulsively, red spots were on her thin cheeks, but there was still an ingratiating, somewhat servile, tone in her voice, and she looked scornfully at Minna Eddy.  Then J. Rosenstein, who kept the principal dry-goods store in Banbridge, bore his testimony.  His grievances were small, but none the less vital.  His business dealings with the Carrolls had been limited to sundry spools of thread and kitchen towellings and buttons, but they were as lead in his estimate of wrong, although he had a grave, introspective expression, out of proportion to the seeming triviality of the matter in his mind.  He held in one long hand a slip of paper, and eyed Carroll with dignified accusation.