“You are really too bad,” exclaimed Mrs. Saltren, vexed and angry, “I could tell you things that would surprise you. You think nothing of me because I am not rich or grand, and have to do the house work in my home; but I have been much considered in my day, and admired, and sought. And I have had my wrongs, which I thought to have carried with me to my grave, but as you choose to insult me, your sister, with saying I came in last at a donkey-race, I will tell you that properly I ought to have come in first.” “And I,” said Saltren, standing up, “I insist on your speaking out.” He had remained silent for some time, offended at his brother-in-law’s incredulity, and not particularly interested in what he was saying, which seemed to him trifling. “Let us hear,” said Welsh, with a curl of his lips. He had no great respect for his sister. “You must let me observe in passing that just now you did not come in first because you wouldn’t, and now, apparently, it is because you weren’t allowed.” “I have no wish,” said Marianne Welsh, not noticing the sneer, “to make mischief, but truth is truth.” “Truth,” interposed Welsh, who had the family infirmity of loving to hear his own voice, “truth when naked is unpresentable. The public are squeamish, and turn aside from it as improper; here we step in and frizzle, paint and clothe her, and so introduce her to the public.” “If you interrupt me, how am I to go on?” asked Mrs. Saltren, testily. “I was going to say, when you interrupted with your coarse remarks, that at one time I was a great beauty, and I don’t suppose I’ve quite lost my good looks yet; and I was then very much sought.” “And what is more,” said Welsh, “to the best of my remembrance you were not like a slug in a flower-bed, that when sought digs under ground.” “I tell you,” continued Mrs. Saltren, with heightened colour, “that I have been sought by some of the noblest in the land.” Welsh looked out of the corners of his eyes at his sister, and said nothing. “I was cruelly deceived. A great nobleman whom I will not name—” “Whose title is in abeyance,” threw in Welsh. “Whom I will not name, but might do so if I chose, obtained a licence for a private marriage, and a minister to perform the ceremony, and there were witnesses—the nuptials took place. Not till several days after did I discover that I had been basely deceived. The licence was forged, the minister was a friend of the bridegroom disguised as a parson, and not in holy orders, and the witnesses were sworn to secrecy.” “That is your revelation, is it?” asked James Welsh. “I write it with a small cap., and in pica print.” “It is truth.” “The truth, dressed, of course, and not in tailor-made clothes. I dress the truth myself, but—let me see, never allow of so much margin for improvers.” Then Welsh stood up.