After the Storm

Excerpt: "Would you have me assent if he said black was white?" she answered to her father's remonstrance one day, balancing her little head firmly and setting her lips together in a resolute way. "It might be wiser to say nothing than to utter dissent, if, in so doing, both were made unhappy," returned her father. "And so let him think me a passive fool?" she asked. "No; a prudent girl, shaming his unreasonableness by her self-control." "I have read somewhere," said Irene, "that all men are self-willed tyrants--the words do not apply to you, my father, and so there is an exception to the rule." She smiled a tender smile as she looked into the face of a parent who had ever been too indulgent. "But, from my experience with a lover, I can well believe the sentiment based in truth. Hartley must have me think just as he thinks, and do what he wants me to do, or he gets ruffled.