strangers."

"Papa, you wouldn't, you couldn't be so cruel!" she said, bursting into
tears and hiding her face on his breast.

"I hope you will not be so cruel to yourself as to make it necessary," he
said. "I have fondly hoped you were improving, but your conduct to-night
shows me that you are still a self-willed, rebellious child."

"Well, papa, I've wanted a bird on my hat for ever so long, and I believe
you would have let me have it, too, if Mamma Vi and Grandma Elsie hadn't
said that."

"I shouldn't let you have it, if they were both in favor of it," he said
severely.

"Why, papa?"

"Because of the cruelty it would encourage. And now, Lucilla, I want you
to reflect how very kind it is in Grandpa Dinsmore and Grandma Elsie to be
willing to take my children in and share with them their own delightful
home. You have not the slightest claim upon their kindness, and very few
people in their case would have made such an offer. I really feel almost
ashamed to accept so much without being able to make some return, even if
I knew my children would all behave as dutifully and gratefully as
possible. And knowing how likely your conduct is to be the exact reverse
of that, I can hardly reconcile it to my conscience to let you go with
them to Ion. I am afraid I ought to place you in a boarding-school at
once, before I am ordered away."