“I know. I saw father going down the garden. He is going to the summer house also; he intends to tell you, mother, what he is going to say to-night. He always reads, or recites his speeches to you. I have heard him sometimes.”
“Then thou ought to be ashamed to speak of it! I am astonished at thy want of honor! If by chance, thou found out some reserved way of thy father it should have been held by thee as a sacred, inviolable secret. Not even to me, should thou have dared to speak of it. I am sorry, indeed, to hev to teach thee this point of childhood’s honor. I thought it would be natural to the daughter of Antony and Annie Annis!”
“Mother! Forgive me! I am ashamed and sorry and oh, do not, for my sake, tell father! My dear, dear father! You have made it look like mocking him--I never thought how shameful it could look--oh, I never thought about it! I never spoke of it before! I never did!”
“Well, then, see thou never again listens to what was not intended for thee to hear. It would be a pretty state of things, if thy father hed to go somewhere out of the way of listeners to get a bit of private talk with me.”
“Was thou trying to compliment me or was thou scorning a bit about thy father’s ways? If thou thought I would feel complimented by being set above him that thought was as far wrong as it could possibly get.”
“Mother! Mother! You will break my heart! You never before spoke this way to me--_Oh, dear! Oh, dear!_”
For a few minutes Madam let her weep, then she bent over the crouching, sobbing girl, and said, “There now! There now!”
“Well, dearie, sorrow is good for sin. It is the only thing sorrow is good for. Dry thy eyes, and we will niver name the miserable subject again.”
“Hes thou forgotten the fifth commandment? That little laugh at thy father’s saying his speeches to me first was more than a bit scornful. It was far enough from the commandment ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ It wasn’t honoring either of us.”
“Nay! nay! Give me a kiss and go and look after thy letters; also tell Yates dinner must be on the table at one o’clock no matter what his watch says.” Then Katherine walked silently away and Madam went to the lower summer house, and the dinner was on the table at one o’clock. It was an exceedingly quiet meal, and immediately after it, the squire’s horse was brought to the door.