"If her mother were alive would she have nothing to say?"
I thought my father winced at that word, but he answered:
"Her mother would agree to anything I thought best."
"Her mother, so far as I can see, was a most unselfish, most submissive, most unhappy woman," said the Reverend Mother.
My father glanced quickly at me and then, after a moment, he said:
"I'm obliged to you, ma'am, much obliged. But as I'm not a man to throw words away I'll ask you to tell me what all this means. Does it mean that you've made plans of your own for my daughter without consulting me?"
"No, sir."
"Then perhaps it means that the gel herself . . ."
"That may be so or not—I cannot say. But when you sent your daughter to a convent-school . . ."
"Wrong, ma'am, wrong for once. It was my wife's sister—who thinks the gel disobedient and rebellious and unruly . . ."