Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/21

Rh "Do you mind, Mother?" Reba pursued.

"O dear, dear, dear!" her mother wailed, as if in physical torture, "I wish you wouldn't tease so! It always brings on my neuralgia."

A slight flush spread over Reba's cheeks. "But I'm twenty-five," she murmured. The last spark of her girlhood had gone out to-day. Were there to be no compensations? "You all go out when you want to. You don't ask permission. I don't see"

She stopped short. Aunt Augusta had turned halfway round on the machine cover, and had pulled down her spectacles. She was glaring at the younger woman over their steel rims.

"Rebecca!" she exclaimed. Just the one word twice repeated, "Rebecca!"

Rebecca had always been terrified by Aunt Augusta's eyes when they glared at her over the rims of her glasses. They were like gray-striped monsters peering over a fence.

"Oh, I don't mean anything," hastily she assured her aunt. "I won't go, of course. Only Oh, I won't go. I don't really care about it."

Her hand fell away from the knob. She gave it up. She surrendered. She had always surrendered. With drooping shoulders she crossed the room to the door that led into the hall.

"Where are you going?" Aunt Augusta demanded.

"Nowhere. Just upstairs to my room. Do you mind?"

"You better put on your jacket," she suggested, pushing her glasses back into place, and resuming her stitching.

It was very warm in the house. The sisters liked