As for Angela, it would never do to let the child so
soon forget that this should be an awful lesson. Aunt Janet's manner,
therefore, when, butterfly net in hand, she required of her niece full
explanation of the presence in the room of this ravished trophy, was
something fraught with far too much of future punishment, of wrath
eternal. Even in her chastened mood Angela's spirit stood _en garde_.
"I have told father everything, auntie," she declared. "I leave it all
to him," and bore in silence the comments, without the utterance of
which the elder vestal felt she could not conscientiously quit the
field. "Bold," "immodest," "unmaidenly," "wanton," were a choice few
of Aunt Janet's expletives, and these were unresented. But when she
concluded with "I shall send this--thing to him at once, with my
personal apologies for the act of an irresponsible child," up sprang
Angela with rebellion flashing from her eyes. She had suffered
punishment as a woman. She would not now be treated as a child. To
Janet's undisguised amaze and disapprobation, Wren decided that Angela
herself should send both apology and net. It was the first missive of
the kind she had ever written, but, even so, she would not submit it
for either advice or criticism--even though its composition cost her
many hours and tears and sheets of paper.
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