As to YOUR going over to the stage-office, I went there myself at the last moment to save you the mortification of asking questions of strangers that they know have been a dozen times answered already." There was such a ring of absolute truthfulness, albeit worn by repetition, in the young girl's deep honest voice that for one instant her two more emotional relatives quailed before it; but only for a moment.
"That's right!" shrilled the old woman.

"Go on and abuse your own brother.

It's only the fear you have that he'll make his fortune yet and shame you before the father and mother you despise." The young girl remained standing by the window, motionless and apparently passive, as if receiving an accepted and usual punishment.
But here the elder woman gave way to sobs and some incoherent snuffling, at which the younger went away.

Whether she recognized in her mother's tears the ordinary deliquescence of emotion, or whether, as a woman herself, she knew that this mere feminine conventionality could not possibly be directed at her, and that the actual conflict between them had ceased, she passed slowly on to an inner hall, leaving the male victim, her unfortunate father, to succumb, as he always did sooner or later, to their influence.

Crossing the hall, which was decorated with a few elk horns, Indian trophies, and mountain pelts, she entered another room, and closed the door behind her with a gesture of relief.
The room, which looked upon a porch, presented a singular combination of masculine business occupations and feminine taste and adornment.