"Oh, she talked about B crying her eyes out for him. She must have tried to get sympathy from her. Besides, she does talk about it to other people. There's that little Mollie Walter. And the Pemberton girls. They look at me as if I were a sort of ogre. And the Beckley girl too. Really, I'm not going to be put in that position. It's time B was brought to her senses. If she's going to change the whole of her attitude towards me because of this, I suppose I've got to put up with it. But I'm not going to be held up here as a brutal tyrannical father, and have the whole of our jolly family life spoilt, as she's spoiling it now." In this mood he talked to Beatrix immediately he reached home, summoning her into the library in order to do so. He had never lectured one of his children before. None of them had ever needed it. In the old days of occasional childish naughtiness, when as a last resort his authority had been called in, his way had been to take them on his knee and express surprise and sorrow at what he had been told about them. Floods of tears, embraces and promises of complete and fundamental change of conduct had immediately followed, and carried off the remains of whatever naughtiness had been complained of. To hold out against Miss Waterhouse had sometimes been necessary to satisfy that spirit of contrariety which represents the workings of original sin in the best behaved of children. But to hold out against him had never been possible. The melting had come immediately, and subsequent behaviour had always been beautiful until the devil pricked again.