‘You, resent his self-will!’ she exclaimed.

‘You, injured by his haughty temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the qualities which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you rewarded, now, for your years of trouble?’

‘Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel!’

‘I tell you,’ she returned, ‘I WILL speak to her. No power on earth should stop me, while I was standing here!

Have I been silent all these years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you ever loved him!’ turning on her fiercely. ‘I could have loved him, and asked no return.