"Kindness is a bad habit of yours, papa," she said. "You take to good deeds as some men take to gambling or to drink." He smiled and patted her cheek tenderly. Her remark was not far from the truth. His morbid (and never wholly gratified) passion for approval made him intemperately anxious to please, and caused his good nature to be freely exploited by unscrupulous people, who repaid him with nothing but their contempt. "That’s like my own little Jenny. Now go up to Emily’s room and make your peace with mother." "Is that in my power?" said Janet, flaring up again and disengaging her arms from him. Mr. Barr was torn between fear of his wife and affection for his daughter. "Simply keep quiet and don’t answer her back when she speaks to you," he urged pacifically. "After all, she’s your mother, she has a right to criticize you." "I refuse to acknowledge the right." "Now, don’t be obstinate, girlie. She can’t help lecturing people. It’s a habit she acquired in her missionary society. Doesn’t she lecture me? If I submit, surely you can." "I’m neither a heathen nor a husband." "There now," he said, pleading with her. "Don’t spoil everything by standing on your pride. What will you gain by defying her? Nothing! Then why do so? I tell you, Jenny, your mother may be a little hasty, but she’s a very clever, strong-minded woman. In the long run, she is always in the right." "How can you cringe to her even when her back is turned," cried Janet, revolted. "You know the truth as well as I do. She has terrorized all of us as cruelly as ever her Puritan ancestors terrorized Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson." "Now, that shows how unfair you are," said Mr. Barr, eagerly, in a vibrant voice, as rich as Janet’s own. "Only two nights ago, your mother was reading to me from John Fiske’s colonial history. She came across this very case you mention, the case of Anne Hutchinson. And I distinctly recall that she condemned the persecution severely." Disdaining to reply, Janet walked away from his side. In that moment, she hated him. It was incredible that he could be such a willing, subservient dupe. She looked hostilely at his magnificent exterior. He had also inherited a lively wit and considerable mental dexterity. Had he possessed any force of character he might have been a great financier or statesman instead of a petty manager of a small branch bank. And Mrs. Barr’s temper might have been kept within bounds, and the Barrs might have enjoyed a happy home, instead of becoming a phantom replica of a bigoted Boston family in the high and palmy days of Cotton Mather. He misinterpreted her silence. "You need merely say that you are sorry," he urged, "and that you’ll never stay out again without her approval. That will patch up everything."