"Then your wife's sister is either a very stupid or a very bad-hearted woman."
"Ma'am?"
"I have known your daughter longer than she has, and there isn't a word of truth in what she says."
It was as much as I could do not to fall on the Reverend Mother's neck, but I clung to her hand with a convulsive grasp.
"May be so, ma'am, may be no," said my father. "But when you talk about my sending my daughter to a convent-school I would have you know that I've been so busy with my business . . ."
"That you haven't had time to take care of the most precious thing God gave you."
"Ma'am," said my father, rising to his feet, "may I ask what right you have to speak to me as if . . ."
"The right of one who for ten years has been a mother to your motherless child, sir, while you have neglected and forgotten her."
At that my father, whose bushy eyebrows were heavily contracted, turned to the Bishop.
"Bishop," he said, "is this what I've been paying my money for? Ten years' fees, and middling high ones too, I'm thinking?"