blamed and herself praised when things ought to have been reversed,
but she could not bring herself to renounce her father's good opinion.

Professor Marshall gave them both a kiss and set them down. "It's
twenty minutes to one. You'd better run along, dears," he said.

After the children had gone out, his wife, who had preserved an
unbroken silence, remarked dryly, "So that's the stone we give them
when they ask for bread."

Professor Marshall made no attempt to defend himself. "My dim
generalities are pretty poor provender for honest children's minds, I
admit," he said humbly, "but what else have we to give them that isn't
directly contradicted by our lives? There's no use telling children
something that they never see put into practice."

"It's not impossible, I suppose, to change our lives," suggested his
wife uncompromisingly.

Professor Marshall drew a great breath of disheartenment. "As long as
I can live without thinking of that element in American life--it's all
right. But when anything brings it home--like this today--I feel that
the mean compromise we all make must be a disintegrating moral force
in the national character. I feel like gathering up all of you, and
going away--away from the intolerable question--to Europe--and earning
the family living by giving English lessons!"

Mrs. Marshall cried out, "It makes _me_ feel like going out right here
in La Chance with a bomb in one hand and a rifle in the other!"