"Father," she cried, exploding. "I can’t say that. Because I simply don’t mean it. From now on, I’m going to have my own way about some things, even if I have to leave the family. Mother may grind you to the very dust. Marriage seems to give her that right, and you seem to enjoy the process. But she shan’t do so to me." "Good Lord, what will happen next?" exclaimed the unhappy man, appalled at the collapse of his plan of conciliation. "The house has been like a funeral all day. Would to Heaven _I_ were the corpse." But his daughter did not hear this pathetic wish, for she was already on her way upstairs. *II* In Emily’s bedroom above the parlor, Mrs. Barr was reclining in an invalid’s chair. Illness had not softened the rigidity of that too, too solid flesh. She was pale, but her pallor merely accentuated the iron lines of her face. Emily, more matronly than ever, hovered about her mother in unctuous solicitude, while Laura, the maid, busied herself setting chairs and knick-knacks wrong, in order to set them right again. Mrs. Barr disliked to have anyone about her unoccupied. When Janet entered, her mother greeted her coldly, and then dismissed Laura with studied sweetness. She was actually much kinder to her domestics than to members of the family. Servants were hard to get and harder to keep. "I’m sorry you have been ill," said the impenitent, politely. "Sit down, my child. I’m getting better now, thanks in part to Doctor Hervey." "What did the doctor say?" "That it was to be expected under the circumstances," interposed Emily. "He thought it better for mother not to go to the missionary society tonight." This was ominous news. Janet recollected that her mother had not missed a missionary meeting in two years. The pause was filled with a battery of silent criticism. Usually Janet dispersed these terrible silences with a torrent of impromptu apologies. Today, however, she held her peace. Though every muscle in her body was taut, she felt care-free. Yes, at this supreme inquisitorial moment, she felt surprisingly care-free. Except that, in response to Emily’s allusion to missionaries, an old jingle ricochetted weirdly through her mind. It ran: Oh, to be a cassowary, On the plains of Timbuctoo, Chewing up a missionary— Skin and bone, and hymn book, too. Outwardly, she was as impassive as a Chinese joss. "Well, Janet?" said Mrs. Barr, outfought with one of her own weapons. "Yes, mother?" replied Janet, demurely interrogative. She folded her hands innocently in her lap, and looked with a show of impersonal interest at Emily’s new pumps. "Have you nothing to tell me?" "Not unless you wish to learn about the ball I went to yesterday. Are you interested in that?" Emily gave a scornful laugh. "I’m not interested in the ball," said Mrs. Barr, "and no one knows it better than you. What I am interested in is your attending the ball against my express wishes."