about the career of art which he intended to pursue. John might have run away, and so might Mark, but Edward wasn't going to do any such thing. He was going to have it out with Dear Mother and let her know what he thought about people who diverted and perhaps read other people's letters and caused misunderstandings among friends. Why shouldn't he defy her? Why be afraid? She couldn't hurt him in any way—neither physically nor mentally.
And when he reached the rectory he was a militant youth inflamed by the justice of his cause. But when he marched boldly into the library and found Dear Mother alone and knew that the hour of his opportunity to play the man had struck, his spirit weakened. He was not able to say any of the things that he had planned—not a single one of them.
"Where have you been, Edward?" she asked. "Not to New Rochelle, I feel sure, after all that I have told you about that dreadful Ruggles family."
She eyed him from under bent brows. Her shelf of upper teeth seemed to stick out at him more than ever. He wondered why he should be so dreadfully afraid of her, and only knew that he was. And he loved her, too. That was the queer thing. Why should he love her? She was a tyrant, she was unjust, she was untruthful in the cause of
