I understood now—or thought I understood—why my step-mother had desired me to be silent on the subject of my allowance. Father shook himself. I was roused even to a show of anger.
“Well, at any rate,” I said, “it might buy you a book, but it can buy other things as well. I was given the money to-day—your money—and I must thank you; only please in future make it a little more, for I cannot buy dresses with it; it isn’t enough.”
He stared at me wildly, and just at that moment my step-mother came in.
“Grace,” said my father, turning to her, “this child seems to be in a sad muddle. She has been endeavouring to confuse me, which is exceedingly wrong of her. I trust that in future you will permit yourself, my dear, the extreme privilege of repressing Dumps.”
“Oh, oh!” I said.
“Yes,” continued father, “of repressing her.—You are, Dumps, too exuberant, too unmannerly, too impulsive.—Keep her, my dear, from bringing unsightly objects of that sort into my presence.”
He pointed to my darling brown-paper parcels.
“And above all things, dear Grace, tell her not to thank me for what I have not done. She has been murmuring the most absurd rubbish into my ears, talking about a dress allowance. A dress allowance, indeed! Does she need money to spend on her outward adornment? Tell her to learn that hymn of Watts’s, ‘Why should our garments, made to hide’—She had better learn that. Let her learn once for all that,—
“Be she dressed fine as she will,
Flies, worms, and moths exceed her still.
“In short, Grace, suppress the child, and tell her not to utter falsehoods in my presence.”