"No, to--" "Draw up my shawl," interrupted the old woman. "_I_ do not care who it is. Why do you keep on telling me?" "Because I did not wish to deceive you." "Wait till I ask you not to deceive me. Who is the boy?" "His name is Erastus Pronando," began Anne; "and--" "Pronando?" cried Katharine Vanhorn, in a loud, bewildered voice--"Pronando? And his father's name?" "John, I believe," said Anne, startled by the change in the old face. "But he has been dead many years." Old Katharine rose; her hands trembled, her eyes flashed. "You will give up this boy at once and forever," she said, violently, "or my compact with you is at an end." "How can I, grandaunt? I have promised--" "I believe I am mistress of my own actions; and in this affair I will have no sort of hesitation," continued the old woman, taking the words from Anne, and tapping a chair back angrily with her hand. "Decide now--this moment. Break this engagement, and my agreement remains. Refuse to break it, and it falls. That is all." "You are unjust and cruel," said the girl, roused by these arbitrary words. Miss Vanhorn waved her hand for silence. "If you will let me tell you, aunt--" The old woman bounded forward suddenly, as if on springs, seized her niece by both shoulders, and shook her with all her strength. "There!" she said, breathless. "_Will_ you stop talking! All I want is your answer--yes, or no." The drawing-room of Madame Moreau had certainly never witnessed such a sight as this. One of its young ladies shaken--yes, absolutely shaken like a refractory child! The very chairs and tables seemed to tremble, and visibly hope that there was no one in the _salon des élèves_, behind. Anne was more startled than hurt by her grandaunt's violence. "I am sorry to displease you," she said, slowly and very gravely; "but I can not break my engagement." Without a word, Miss Vanhorn drew her shawl round her shoulders, pinned it, crossed the room, opened the door, and was gone. A moment later her carriage rolled away, and Anne, alone in the drawing-room, listened to the sound of the wheels growing fainter and fainter, with a chilly mixture of blank surprise, disappointment, and grief filling her heart. "But it _was_ right that I should tell her," she said to herself as she went up stairs--"it _was_ right." Right and wrong always presented themselves to her as black and white. She knew no shading. She was wrong; there are grays. But, so far in her life, she had not been taught by sad experience to see them. "It _was_ right," she repeated to Helen, a little miserably, but still steadfastly. "I am not so sure of that," replied Mrs. Lorrington. "You have lost a year's fixed income for those children, and a second winter here for yourself; and for what? For the sake of telling the dragon something which does not concern her, and which she did not wish to know." "But it was true."