LAUREL WAS TO go to Mrs. Morrison’s the following Monday. She dreaded the visit. She was suspicious of women, and especially suspicious of mothers. One of the reasons Laurel always looked forward with such joy to the month with her father was that there were never any slights—never any fear of any slights. His presence seemed to prevent the possibility of slights. Everybody to whom he introduced her in this fine proud manner as “my daughter Laurel” treated her with the same kindness—almost deference—with which they treated him. Mrs. Morrison had been kindness itself to her a year ago, at tea in the hotel, but her father had been there then. Ladies had a way of being kind when men were about, Laurel had discovered. It was being left alone with Mrs. Morrison that she dreaded.

Besides, Laurel knew very little about the etiquette of private homes. She was familiar with the ways and customs of a hotel. Knew the proper manner to assume toward waiters, and porters, and clerks; knew, too, the proper fee to pay bellboys and chambermaids, if she asked them to do anything for her, which she seldom did, for dimes and quarters were never freely squandered by Laurel and her mother on ice-water or extra blankets for cool nights. But she was uncertain about the proper manner to assume toward servants in a private home. In the winter-time she and her mother lived in an apartment hotel. How many servants were there usually, anyhow, and what did you call them, and what fee did you give them? And when, and how, and for what? Or didn’t you give them a fee at all? And just how, she wondered, should you dress in a private home? Did a girl of thirteen change three times a day, for instance, and put on an organdie for dinner? And who did her hair? Miss Simpson, it appeared, was not to accompany Laurel to Mrs. Morrison’s. Miss Simpson wasn’t very good at hair. She never even attempted curls. But she could get snarls out, and brush, and divide fairly well, under direction. Laurel was helpless without somebody.

Laurel mentioned none of her perplexities to her father. If she did he might wonder why it was she knew so little about homes. It might reflect upon her mother. For at the private school she attended in the winter-time, she often heard intimate friends talking about spending nights with each other. Laurel had no such intimate friends at the school. That she hadn’t was one of the many galling failures of Mrs. Dallas’s ambitions for her daughter. Laurel was not unaware of it. No. Her father should know nothing of her ignorance.