"I asked him to let me go to the seminary this term, and he said if you had no objection I might do so," said the hesitating girl, at length, with a long-drawn breath, as though she had relieved her bosom of a heavy burden.
The pale lady was silent a few moments, as if revolving the matter in her mind. Then she spoke suddenly. "You said your father had no objection?"
"Yes," answered Florence.
"Then, of course, I have none," said the woman, turning over on her pillow and settling herself as if to sleep again.
Florence was about to pour forth her gratitude for the favor shown her request, when the dark-browed woman entered, shook her finger at her, and bade her go below. Florence's eyes flashed back her answer.
"I'll go at my mother's request, not otherwise," said she.
A dark frown gathered on the woman's features, and the invalid said tremblingly, "I would like to sleep; perhaps you had better go and stay with your father a while, my dear."
Florence kissed the pale brow, and then moved toward the door with noiseless tread. The dark woman cast a glance of angry triumph upon her, which was returned by one of fearless defiance.
Since Florence's earliest recollection her mother had been an invalid, shunning society and subject to long fits of depression, and, upon the slightest excitement, to severe attacks of palpitation and bleeding from the chest, which frequently prostrated her on a bed of suffering for weeks. Hannah Doliver had always been her attendant, though Florence, in the simplicity of her young heart, often wondered that her parents should retain her in their service; for she was a bold, impudent, violent-tempered woman, who set up her will for law in the household, and seemed to exercise an almost tyrannic sway over the weak invalid, who appeared to stand in awe of her slightest nod. She showed a marked dislike for Florence, and delighted in tantalizing her, when she was a little child, and thwarting her wishes. As the fair girl grew older, she resolved the arbitrary woman should not govern or intimidate her, and met all her attempts at petty tyranny with a bold, undaunted spirit, which seemed to increase the woman's hatred. Florence once asked her father why he did not send Hannah Doliver away.
"Your mother could not do without her, my child," said he.