"Will it be all right if I'm not home at six to-night, father?"
"That is not my affair, Miss Belle," he snapped. "Stenographers whom I employ manage to complete their work without complaining to me about the hours."
Ada saw in a flash the plan of campaign her father had decided to adopt. Very well. Now that it was open warfare, and she felt the support of her troops, trained all winter in secret, daily drills, the confidence of preparedness was hers.
Next day when Mr. Roper told her that he and Mr. Belden had decided that they would require her services, or some other stenographer's, for July and August, and until September fifteenth, Ada felt within her, her fighting spirit struggling for its opportunity. She accepted her father's dare. Even when a letter from Aunt Harriet arrived—the third day after she had told Mr. Roper she would keep the position—inviting her to spend a month in Connecticut, and mysteriously inclosing railroad tickets, she did not waver—in spite of the fact, too, that her mother let drop the information that "puppa" wouldn't object.
Partly because of it, she detected her father's
