"Oh, come, come!" said Mrs. Jansenius peremptorily, "we have had enough
crying. Let us have no more of it."

Henrietta sprang up in a passion. "I will say and do as I please," she
exclaimed. "I am a married woman, and I will receive no orders. And I
will have my husband back again, no matter what he does to hide himself.
Papa, won't you make him come back to me? I am dying. Promise that you
will make him come back."

And, throwing herself upon her father's bosom, she postponed further
discussion by going into hysterics, and startling the household by her
screams.



CHAPTER III

One of the professors at Alton College was a Mrs. Miller, an
old-fashioned schoolmistress who did not believe in Miss Wilson's system
of government by moral force, and carried it out under protest. Though
not ill-natured, she was narrow-minded enough to be in some degree
contemptible, and was consequently prone to suspect others of despising
her. She suspected Agatha in particular, and treated her with disdainful
curtness in such intercourse as they had--it was fortunately little.
Agatha was not hurt by this, for Mrs. Miller was an unsympathetic woman,
who made no friends among the girls, and satisfied her affectionate
impulses by petting a large cat named Gracchus, but generally called
Bacchus by an endearing modification of the harsh initial consonant.