"Darling, what do you intend to do?"
"Go to bed!" the man replied.
The tone admitted of no deliberation, the mother obeyed, and threw herself heavily on one of the beds. A sobbing was now audible in a corner.
"What is that?" the father cried.
The younger girl, without leaving the gloom in which she was crouching, showed her bleeding hand. In breaking the glass she had cut herself; she had crawled close to her mother's bed, and was now crying silently. It was the mother's turn to draw herself up and cry:—
"You see what nonsensical acts you commit! She has cut herself in breaking the window."
"All the better," said the man; "I expected it."
"How all the better?" the woman continued.
"Silence!" the father replied. "I suppress the liberty of the press."
Then, tearing the chemise which he wore, he made a bandage, with which he quickly wrapped up the girl's bleeding hand; this done, his eye settled on the torn shirt with satisfaction.