“What do you mean, mother?”

“Don’t anser one question with another.”

“How can I anser when I don’t understand you?”

She simply twiched with fury.

“You—­a mere Child!” she raved.  “And I can hardly bring myself to mention it—­the idea of your owning a Flask, and bringing it into this house—­it is—­it is——­”

Well, I was growing cold and more hauty every moment, so I said:  “I don’t see why the mere mention of a Flask upsets you so.  It isn’t because you aren’t used to one, especialy when traveling.  And since I was a mere baby I have been acustomed to intoxicants.”

“Barbara!” she intergected, in the most dreadful tone.

“I mean, in the Familey,” I said.  “I have seen wine on our table ever since I can remember.  I knew to put salt on a claret stain before I could talk.”

Well, you know how it is to see an Enemy on the run, and although I regret to refer to my dear mother as an Enemy, still at that moment she was such and no less.  And she was beating it.  It was the referance to my youth that had aroused me, and I was like a wounded lion.  Besides, I knew well enough that if they refused to see that I was practicaly grown up, if not entirely, I would get a lot of Sis’s clothes, fixed up with new ribbons.  Faded old things!  I’d had them for years.

Better to be considered a bad woman than an unformed child.

“However, mother,” I finished, “if it is any comfort to you, I did not buy that Flask.  And I am not a confirmed alcoholic.  By no means.”

“This settles it,” she said, in a melancoly tone.  “When I think of the comfort Leila has been to me, and the anxiety you have caused, I wonder where you get your—­your deviltry from.  I am posatively faint.”

I was alarmed, for she did look queer, with her face all white around the Rouge.  So I reached for the Flask.

“I’ll give you a swig of this,” I said.  “It will pull you around in no time.”

But she held me off feircely.

“Never!” she said.  “Never again.  I shall emty the wine cellar.  There will be nothing to drink in this house from now on.  I do not know what we are coming to.”

She walked into the bathroom, and I heard her emptying the Flask down the drain pipe.  It was a very handsome Flask, silver with gold stripes, and all at once I knew the young man would want it back.  So I said: 

“Mother, please leave the Flask here anyhow.”

“Certainly not.”

“It’s not mine, mother.”

“Whose is it?”

“It—­a friend of mine loned it to me.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t tell me!  Barbara, I am utterly bewildered.  I sent you away a simple child, and you return to me—­what?”

Well, we had about an hour’s fight over it, and we ended in a compromise.  I gave up the Flask, and promised not to smoke and so forth, and I was to have some new dresses and a silk Sweater, and to be allowed to stay up until ten o’clock, and to have a desk in my room for my work.