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"Rosina," he said, "and you, Philip, there is a lecture to be given in the chapel this evening on 'Moral Probity in Commercial Life.' It is my wish that you should both attend. Matthew, I believe, has a class at the technical schools."

Rosina looked at once towards Philip, but Philip, as he was so often to do in life, failed her. He hesitated.

"To-night?" he repeated, a little vaguely.

"You will do well to be there in half an hour's time," Benjamin Stone continued. "Representatives of my household should occupy the front pew. Do you hear, Rosina?"

She rose to her feet. Into the ugly room, with its closely drawn, green Venetian blinds, a ray of unwelcomed sunshine found its way between two of the slats. It happened to fall upon her face just as she was nerving herself for the task. She felt, indeed, something of the spirit of a modern Joan of Arc as she spoke the first words of rebellion which had passed her lips for many years, spoke them not fearfully but with a strange wonder that fear was not there.