But immediately a returning wave of anger engulfed his sorrow. "You are extravagant--wickedly so. You force me to pay out large sums of money. You've made me buy ice cream for the old ladies, the veterans, the firemen and all the mothers and babies, too.--Pretty nearly the whole town has been entertained at my expense," he groaned. "Worst of all," he continued with renewed temper, "were your fool admissions and asinine agreement which forced me to endow that room at the hospital. "It's time to call a halt," he raved. "I'll stand it no longer. It must stop." He paused before the shrinking girl and shook his fist in the air. "Hereafter you will mind your own business and not interfere in the troubles of others. You'll stay at home where you belong and quit gadding about." Stunned by his vehemence and crushed by his words, the forlorn little figure raised pleading eyes to him as he strode out of the room. "Daddy," she cried after him, but he took no notice of it. In her own room, tears brought relief to Virginia, and in time she was able to review her father's behavior with a degree of calmness. She trembled anew as she remembered his anger. Then, with a start, she awakened to the fact that he had forbidden her to continue to do those things which she had done in the spirit of her mother's message. Her mind traveled over his actions in the past and reconsidered remarks that he had made. Suddenly she realized that he had never been in sympathy with her, that he had frankly told her so, and that she had refused to believe him. With sickening alarm, she awakened to the conflict between the ideals of her father and her mother. She sat upon the bed, a dejected heap of sorrow, and gazed at the wall with dry eyes, frightened and unseeing. What must she do? That was the question. It smothered her acute grief at his angry words. Worshiping the mother whom she had never known with all the hunger of a lonely heart, it was a solemn and tragic decision which she forced upon herself. The gravity of it urged her to physical action. She could not bear to lie there, she must move about. It was a sad eyed girl who went downstairs. From Serena she learned that her father had telephoned that he would not be home for lunch. The old negress used all of her arts to persuade her mistress to eat something. "Ain' yo'all gwine pick at dis yere salad an' tast'tes some o' de custard ah fix special fo' ma honey chil'?" she begged. To comfort Virginia she belittled the episode of the morning. "You' Daddy done git mad fo' er minute caze dat ole boat stick in de mud. He gwine fo'git it quick. He ain' tek no 'count o' de babies wot 'joy deyse'fs er eatin' an' er sleepin'." The girl ate sparingly as Serena forced food upon her.