“Agreed; but on condition that you will take me in on my own terms.”
“You are a perfect old tyrant! but there, I promise!”
“On your honor?”
“Yes, yes, now that’s enough talking, I won’t wait another minute,” and she seized my arm in such a grip that I had to go willy-nilly.
When we got to her house, she showed me with pride the room she had arranged for me behind the shop, all warm and comfortable and directly under her eye, as if I were a child of a year old. I was touched to see how the dear girl had made up the bed with her best linen sheets and comforter, and had put a nosegay on the table; it made me laugh too when I thought how furious she would be. “This won’t do at all,” said I, so though vexed enough she showed me the other rooms downstairs, but I would have none of them, and finally chose a little nook under the mansarded roof.
In spite of everything she could say, I declared that she might take it or leave it, that if she would not let me have the room I liked, I would go back to my hut, so she had to give in, but every day and all day long she kept at me about it.
“That’s not a fit place for you, Father, the other room is much more comfortable,—why in the world don’t you like it?”
“Because I don’t,” I would say and then she would go into a rage, and swear that I would drive her crazy, that she knew why I behaved so, it was just because I was too stuffy and proud to be beholden to any of my children, even to her.
“I should like to box your ears!” she would cry, and then I would tell her that would be the only way to make me accept something from her gratis.
“You don’t love me, Daddy.”