“I am both surprised and mortified by what I have just overheard,” he said.  “I had a better opinion of my dear, eldest daughter than to suppose she would ever show herself so heartless.  You surely must have forgotten that poor Alma is a stranger, in a strange land, while you are at home, in your father’s house.  Go to her now, and apologize for your rudeness.”

Lulu made no movement to obey, but stood before him in sullen silence and with downcast, scowling countenance.

He waited a moment; then said sternly, “Lucilla, you will yield instant obedience to my order, or go immediately to your own room, and not venture into my presence again until you can tell me you have obeyed.”

At that she turned and left the room, more angry and rebellious than she had ever been since that dreadful time at Ion when her indulgence in a fit of passion had so nearly cost little Elsie’s life.

“Papa will have a pretty time making me do it,” she muttered angrily to herself, as she stood by a window in her bedroom looking out into the grounds.  “Ask Alma’s pardon, indeed!  She’s not even a lady; she’s nothing but a poor woman, who has to support herself with her needle,—­or rather with a sewing machine, and cutting and fitting,—­and I think it’s just outrageous for papa to tell me I must ask her pardon.  I’ll not do it, and papa needn’t think he can make me, though——­” she added, uneasily, the next minute, “to be sure, he always has made me obey him; but I’m older now; too old, I think, even he would say, to be whipped into doing what I don’t choose to do.

“But he forbade me to come into his presence till I obeyed, and—­oh, dear, I can’t live that way, because I love him so—­better than any one else in all the wide world; and—­and—­it would just kill me to have to go without his love and his caresses; never to have him hug and kiss me, and call me his dear child, his darling.  Oh, I couldn’t bear it!  I never could! it would just break my heart!” and her tears began to fall like rain.

She cried quite violently for a while; then began to think of Alma more kindly and pityingly than ever before, as an orphan and a stranger in a strange land.

“Oh, I am ashamed to have treated her so!” she exclaimed at length, “and I will ask her pardon; not only because papa has ordered me to do so, but because I am sorry for her, and really mortified to think of having treated her so badly.”

Fortunately, just at that moment Alma’s timid rap was heard at the door and her voice saying, in a hesitating, deprecating way, “Miss Lu, please, I need to try the dress once more.  I’m very sorry to disturb and trouble you, but I know you want it to be a good fit.”

“Yes, of course I do, Alma,” returned Lulu gently, opening the door as she spoke; “you are quite right to come back with it.  I’m sorry and ashamed of having been so rude and unkind to you when you were in here before,” she added, holding out her hand.  “It was shameful treatment.  Papa said I must ask your pardon, and I think I would do it now, even if he hadn’t ordered me.”