course, that Mary is to go to school to-morrow
morning, I suppose," she said.

"Why, of course, of course," began Father impatiently, looking down at
his paper. "Of course she'll go to--" he stopped suddenly. A complete
change came to his face. He grew red, then white. His eyes sort of
flashed. "School?" he said then, in a hard, decided voice. "Oh, no;
Mary is not going to school to-morrow morning." He looked down to his
paper and began to read again. For him the subject was very evidently
closed. But for Aunt Jane it was _not_ closed.

"You don't mean, Charles, that she is not to go to school at all, any
more," she gasped.

"Exactly." Father read on in his paper without looking up.

"But, Charles, to stop her school like this!"

"Why not? It closes in a week or two, anyway."

Aunt Jane's lips came together hard.

"That's not the question at all," she said, cold like ice. "Charles,
I'm amazed at you--yielding to that child's whims like this--that she
doesn't want to go to school! It's the principle of the thing that I'm
objecting to. Do you realize what it will lead to--what it--"

"Jane!" With a jerk Father sat up straight. "I realize some things
that perhaps you do not. But that is neither here nor there. I do not
wish Mary to go to school any more this spring. That is all; and I
think--it is sufficient."

"Certainly." Aunt Jane's lips came together again grim and hard.
"Perhaps you will be good enough to say what she _shall_ do with her
time."

"Time? Do? Why--er--what she always does; read, sew, study--"

"Study?" Aunt Jane asked the question with a hateful little smile that
Father would have been blind not to have understood. And he was equal
to it--but I 'most fell over backward when I found _how_ equal to it
he was.

"Certainly," he says, "study. I--I'll hear her lessons myself--in the
library, after I come home in the afternoon. Now let us hear no more
about it."

With that he pushed back his plate, stuffed his astronomy paper into
his pocket, and left the table, without waiting for dessert. And Aunt
Jane and I were left alone.

I didn't say anything. Victors shouldn't boast--and I was a victor, of
course, about the school. But when I thought of what Father had said
about my reciting my lessons to him every day in the library--I wasn't
so sure whether I'd won out or not. Recite lessons to my father? Why,
I couldn't even imagine such a thing!

Aunt Jane didn't say anything either. I guess she