"And says, 'Search ye the Scriptures,' too; nothin' 'bout waitin' till you're old."
"You are too young to understand, even if I should try to explain."
"Why, I understand it nearly every bit," she answered, indignantly, "all except the mizz—I can't find where it says about the mizz."
"The mizz?" repeated Mrs. Gano.
"The mizz?" her father echoed, uneasily. "I haven't read about that myself."
"Well, you've heard about it in church. Didn't you go to church when you were young?"
"Yes," said her parent, meekly, feeling the full force of her implied criticism. "But I don't recall the—what is it?"
"The mizz. Mr. Weston says every Sunday in the Commandments: 'The sea and all that in the mizz.'"
The elder Mrs. Gano could have put up with these crude evidences of a share in the family bias, but not with her granddaughter's growing unsubmissiveness, her chronic mutiny against the smallest restraint. The child had been taught early to look upon herself as a very potent factor in the family life. She observed that arrangements that failed to meet with her approval were often altered. Her mother's sternest form of discipline had been to argue with her. More than one servant had been dismissed in obedience to Miss Val's demands. There was the case of the lady house-keeper from Boston, who, in addition to regular duties, undertook also to teach Val—a learned maiden lady with shaky nerves and a passion for history. It was supposed she left so suddenly because of illness in her family, until Val admitted that she had threatened the lady with the carving-knife after dinner one day.