She persisted and grew sturdy and lovely in defiance of tradition and
conditions. She was as keen-witted and original as she was independent
and charming. Still Theodora took long before she capitulated, and
Nathaniel never succumbed. Indeed, as years passed he grew to fear and
dislike his young daughter. The little creature, in some subtle way,
seemed to have "found him out"; she became, though he would not admit it,
a materialized conscience to him. She made him doubt himself; she laughed
at him, elfishly and without excuse or explanation.

Once they two, sitting alone before the hearth--Nathaniel in his great
chair, Priscilla in her small one--faced each other fearsomely for a
time; then the child gave the gurgling laugh of inner understanding that
maddened the father.

"What you laughing at?" he muttered, taking the pipe from his mouth.

"You!" Priscilla was only seven then, but large and strong.

"Me? How dare you!"

"You are so funny. If I screw my eyes tight I see two of you."

Then Nathaniel struck her. Not brutally, not maliciously; he wanted
desperately to set himself right by--old-time and honoured methods--force
of authority!

Priscilla sprang from her chair, all the laughter and joyousness gone
from her face. She went close to her father, and leaning toward him as
though to confide the warning to him more directly, said slowly:

"Don't you do that or Cilla will hate you!"

It was as if she meant to impress upon him that past a certain limit he
could not go.

Nathaniel rose in mighty wrath at this, and, white-faced and outraged,
darted toward the rebel, but she escaped him and put the width of the
room and the square deal table between them. Then began the chase that
suddenly sank into a degrading and undignified proceeding. Around and
around the two went, and presently the child began to laugh again as
the element of sport entered in.

So Theodora came upon them, and her deeper understanding of her husband's
face frightened and spurred her to action. In that moment, while she
feared, she loved, as she had never loved before, her small daughter. If
the child was a conscience to her stern father, she was a materialization
of all the suppressed defiance of the mother, and, ignoring consequences,
she ran to Priscilla, gathered her in her arms, and over the little, hot,
panting body, confronted the blazing eyes of her husband.

And Nathaniel had done--nothing; said nothing! In a moment the fury,
o