VIII.
"THE SPIDER AND THE FLY."
IF Mrs. Howard had perhaps hoped that little May's pleading would have any softening effect on Gracie, she was mistaken. The message she had expected to receive on reaching home did not come to her. Nor did she hear a word from Gracie through the evening until the little girl's bed-time came. Then she sent word that the hour had come, still hoping and believing that the stubborn heart must relent, and that Gracie would feel that she could not go to rest unforgiven and without her mother's good-night kiss. But she was mistaken. Gracie received the message in sullen silence, but obeyed and went to bed without one word of sorrow or repentance.
It was the same in the morning. Gracie rose and was dressed; her breakfast was brought and eaten in solitude, as her dinner and supper had been yesterday; and still the nurse who waited upon her passed in and out, as it was necessary, and brought no word to comfort the sorrowing heart of her mother.
School-time came, and Gracie knew that the children in her class would believe that her absence was caused by her misconduct of the previous day, as was indeed too true; but this only made her feel more and more proud and obstinate.
The long, weary morning wore away, the solitary dinner was once more over, and again the house seemed so still and lonely, for mamma and the children had gone out again, and the servants were all downstairs.
By and by Gracie heard a light, quick foot running up the stairs and coming towards her own door. The latch was turned and the door softly opened,—Mrs. Howard had not locked her in, for she believed that she could trust Gracie and that she would not disobey so far as to leave the room she had been bidden to keep,—and Hattie's face peeped in.