"That is what he said just before he slept. 'Bread and water,' said he; then his voice grew softer on the brink of sleep, and he said, 'She may have milk too.'" "I love him through it all!" Mrs. Malherb's tears flowed again. She left her daughter and presently returned with the food. "He didn't say 'twas not to be warmed, so I've heated it for you. Oh, my pretty, wicked sweet--how could you do a deed so unbecoming?" "I don't know, mother," answered Grace, beginning to eat. "These things happen. I liked Mr. Cecil Stark very much, and I like his country and his ideas about right and wrong." "A young man's ideas upon such subjects are usually very mistaken." "In the third letter he wrote me he asked me to make a flag for him, and I consented after carefully weighing the matter in my mind." "What should he want with a flag, poor soul?" "'Twas for the Fourth of July--the Anniversary of their Independence. There--the bread and milk are gone. Good night, kind mother. I'm sorry you ever had a daughter." "The female character has always been beyond me," confessed Mrs. Malherb. "The difference between a boy and a girl, as Peter once said, is the difference between a dog and a cat. A dog is so much more reasonable, so much easier to comprehend and direct. Slyness: 'tis a feline thing; and as to obedience, it certainly comes more natural to a son than a daughter, though I know not why. At any rate, it is so where a mother's concerned. A son will do anything so gladly for his mother--if you don't ask him to interfere with his own comfort. And what mother worthy of the name would do that? Not that disobedience to parents was ever recorded against either sex in our rank of society when I was a girl. Now good night, child. Try to sleep, and let your prayer be the same as mine--that it will please God to lift your dear father's wrath by morning." But with the return of day Malherb still wasted his nervous energy in anger. He refused to see his daughter or to liberate her. He wandered miles upon the high Moors alone; then going back again, he returned to the infamous treatment he had suffered and the torment of possessing a thankless child. Presently he attacked his wife, and cursed her past folly and ignorance. "You are to blame for all!" he said. "'Twas your upbringing--so weak, so fond--that bred this devil in her. Would to God you had more of my own mother's spirit in you. Look at me. I owe everything to my education. She was a Roman mother. Had you been more like her, this minx had never dared to flout a father. But, by God, I'll break her now or never!"