"You will stay there until your father comes home this noon," she
said. "This is a matter for him to settle."
_Father_! And I never even thought of her going to _him_ with it. She
was always telling me never to bother Father with anything, and I knew
she didn't usually ask him anything about me. She settled everything
herself. But _this_--and the very thing I didn't want her to ask him,
too. But of course I couldn't help myself. That's the trouble. Youth
is _so_ helpless in the clutches of old age!
Well, I went to my room. Aunt Jane told me to meditate on my sins. But
I didn't. I meditated on other people's sins. _I_ didn't have any to
meditate on. Was it a sin, pray, for me to stand up for my mother and
refuse to associate with people who wouldn't associate with _me_ on
account of _her_? I guess not!
I meditated on Stella Mayhew and her mother, and on those silly,
faithless girls that thought more of an ice-cream soda than they did
of justice and right to their fellow schoolmate. And I meditated on
Aunt Jane and her never giving me so much as a single kiss since I
came. And I meditated on how much better Father liked stars and
comets than he did his own daughter; and I meditated on what a cruel,
heartless world this is, anyway, and what a pity it was that I, so
fair and young, should have found it out so soon--right on the bank,
as it were, or where that brook and river meet.
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