ll, mother, without reference to me
or my feelings. Perhaps I ought to be grateful for being spared so
painful a decision; but I think such a decision should have been
permitted to me."

"You can dare to tell me such things to my very face!"

"Why should I not tell them?" returned Grace, meeting her mother's
angry glance unflinchingly. "It seems to me that one should speak the
truth to one's mother. You have treated me like a child; and I have a
right to feel sore and indignant. Why did you not put the whole thing
before me, and tell me that you and my father did not see how you
could spare me? Do you really believe that I should have been so
wanting to my sense of duty as to follow my own pleasure?"

"Grace, I insist upon your silence! I will not discuss the matter with
you."

"If you insist upon silence, you must be obeyed, mother: but it is you
who have raised the question between us. But when you attack me
unjustly, I must defend myself."

"You are forgetting yourself strangely. Your words are most
disrespectful and unbecoming in a daughter. You tell me to my face
that I am unjust--I, your mother--because I have been compelled to
thwart your wishes."

"No, no--not because of that!" returned Grace, in a voice of
passionate pain; "why will you misunderstand me so?--but because you
have no faith in me. You treat me like a child. You dispute my
privilege to decide in a matter that concerns my own happiness. You
bid me work for you, and you give me no wage--not a word of praise;
and because I remonstrate for once in my life, you insist on my
silence."

"It seems that I am not to be obeyed."

"Oh, yes; you will be obeyed, mother. After to-night I will not open
my lips to offend you again. If I have said more than I ought to have
said as a daughter, I will ask your pardon now; but I cannot take back
one of my words. They are true,--true!"

"I must say your apology is tardy, Grace."

"Nevertheless, it is an apology; for, though you have hurt me, I must
not forget you are my mother. I know my life will be harder after
this, because of what I have said; and yet I would not take back one
of my words!"

"I am more displeased with you than I can say," returned her mother,
taking up her neglected work; and her mouth looked stern and hard.

Never had her aspect been so forbidding, and yet never had her
daughter feared her less.

"Then, if you are displeased with me, I will go away," replied Grace,
moving from he