“I judge you by your actions. I find you here, talking and laughing, and enjoying yourself. And I hear that you have already created a most unfavorable impression in the neighborhood by your rudeness to people who have wished to be civil to you.” “Was it not your own wish that I should shut myself up?” “Yes, but in an humble, not in a defiant, manner. And then you drive about as if nothing had happened, and excite remarks by your appearance alone, which is not the appearance of a disconsolate widow.” “By whose wish was it that I bought a carriage?” “By mine, I suppose,” replied the other frigidly, “but I meant a brougham, so that you could go about quietly, not an open and fashionable one, for you to show yourself off!” “Well, I refuse to drive about in a stuffy, shut-up carriage. I am quite ready to walk, if you wish me to put the carriage down. And I can quite well do with less money than what you allow me. But I maintain the right to spend my allowance, whatever it may be, exactly as I please. Because one has committed one fault----” “Fault!” almost shrieked the visitor. “One grave and deadly sin.” “Because I have done wrong, great wrong,” replied Mrs. Dale. And even to this antagonistic woman her voice shook on the words, “You have no right to think that I am never to lead an independent life. You have no right to the control of my actions. All that you can demand is that I should live decently and quietly. As long as I do so I ought to be, I _will_ be, as free as ever.” “But,” persisted the other, “you seem not to understand what decency requires. In the first place it is imperatively necessary,” and as she said this there was a look of genuine anxiety in her eyes, “that you should hold no intercourse whatever with persons of the opposite sex.” Mrs. Dale said nothing to this; and the look of questioning solicitude in the face of the other grew deeper. “Surely,” she asked at last, “you must see this yourself?” “That,” answered Mrs. Dale deliberately, “is also a matter which rests entirely with me. I won’t be dictated to on that subject any more than on any other.” “Well, then, I warn you that I shall have to keep you in strict surveillance, and that if I hear of your encouraging, or even permitting, the attentions of any man, young or old, I shall feel myself bound in honor to put him in possession of the facts of your history.”