TRAMPLING UPON FIVE
I cannot truthfully say that I felt exactly proud of myself as I marched down to the drawing-room. I met Eveleen coming up as I went down, and she looked flurried; then I met Lilian, and she looked more flurried still; and, lastly, at the foot of the stairs, mamma. Something told me that all three of them had been in the drawing-room to try to bring those men to a consciousness of shame. There was that in their bearing which hinted that they had not succeeded. Eveleen suggested a desire to shake me; Lilian an inclination to bite my nose off; and as for mamma, she received me in a state of fluster which spoke volumes.
“You understand, Norah, that I have f*******n you to disgrace me, and I forbid you again!”
I was just in a mood to melt, and had mamma adopted another t
