There's an easy way and a hard way in most
everything. I take the easy way first, and if it won't work I take the
hard way next, and then it's stiff pulling for the people who pull
against me. I came to Rome to take my daughter home. I don't feel called
upon to explain why I want to take her home, or what I'm going to do
with her when I get her there. I believe I've got the rights of a father
to do what I mean to do, and that it will be an ugly business for
anybody who aids and abets my daughter in resisting her father's will.
So I'll leave her here a week longer, and when I come back, I'll expect
her to be ready and waiting and willing--ready and waiting and willing,
mind you--to go along with me."
After saying this my father faced about and with his heavy flat step
went out of the room, whereupon the Bishop bowed to the Reverend Mother
and followed him.
My heart was by this time in fierce rebellion--all that the pacifying
life of the convent-school had done for me in ten years being suddenly
swept away--and I cried:
"I won't do it! I won't do it!"
But I had seen that the Reverend Mother's face had suddenly become very
white while my father spoke to her at the end and now she said, in a
timid, almost frightened tone:
"Mary, we'll go out to Nemi to-day.
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