"You take them right down the back stairs," I said. "As if it was an
empty box. And put it outside with the waist papers. Quick."

She gathered the thing up, but of course mother had to come in just
then and they met in the doorway. She saw it all in one glance, and she
snatched the card out of my hand.

"From H----!" she read. "Take them out, Hannah, and throw them away. No,
don't do that. Put them on the Servant's table." Then, when the door
had closed, she turned to me. "Just one more ridiculous Episode of this
kind, Barbara," she said, "and you go back to school--Xmas or no Xmas."

I will say this. If she had shown the faintest softness, I'd have told
her the whole thing. But she did not. She looked exactly as gentle as a
macadam pavment. I am one who has to be handled with Gentleness. A
kind word will do anything with me, but harsh treatment only makes me
determined. I then become inflexable as iron.

That is what happened then. Mother took the wrong course and threatened,
which as I have stated is fatal, as far as I am concerned. I refused
to yeild an inch, and it ended in my having my dinner in my room, and
mother threatening to keep me home from the Party the next night. It was
not a threat, if she had only known it.

But when the next day went by, with no more flowers, and nothing
aparently wrong except that mother was very dignafied with me, I began
to feel better. Sis was out all day, and in the afternoon Jane called me
up.