“I don’t say as you’re to take my advice,” said Mrs. Swayne. “I’m not one as puts myself forward to give advice where it ain’t wanted. Ask any one as knows. You as is church folks, if I was you, I’d send for the rector; or speak to your friends. There ain’t one living creature with a morsel of sense as won’t say to you just what I’m saying now.” “Oh please go away--please go away,” said Pamela, who was standing with crimson cheeks between Mrs. Preston and her would-be counselor; “don’t you see mamma is ill?” “She’ll be a deal worse afore all’s done, if she don’t listen in time; and you too, Miss Pamela, for all so angry as you are,” said Mrs. Swayne. “It ain’t nothing to me. If you like it, it don’t do me no harm; contrairaways, it’s my interest to keep you quiet here, for you’re good lodgers--I don’t deny it--and ain’t folks as give trouble. But I was once a pretty lass myself,” she added, with a sigh; “and I knows what it is.” Pamela turned with unfeigned amazement and gazed upon the big figure that stood in the door-way. Once a pretty lass herself! Was this what pretty lasses came to? Mrs. Swayne, however, did not pause to inquire what were the thoughts that were passing through the girl’s mind; she took a step or two farther into the room, nearer the sofa on which Mrs. Preston lay. She was possessed with that missionary zeal for other people’s service, that determination to do as much as lay in her power to keep her neighbors from having their own way, or to make them very uncomfortable in the enjoyment of the luxury, which is so common a development of virtue. Her conscience was weighted with her responsibility: when she had warned them what they were coming to, then at least she would have delivered her own soul. “I don’t want to make myself disagreeable,” said Mrs. Swayne; “it ain’t my way; but, Mrs. Preston, if you go on having folks about, it’s right you should hear what them as knows thinks of it. I ain’t a-blaming you. You’ve lived in foreign parts, and you’re that silly about your child that you can’t a-bear to cross her. I’m one as can make allowance for that. But I just ask you what can the likes of that young fellow want here? He don’t come for no good. Poor folks has a deal of things to put up with in this world, and women folks most of all. I don’t make no doubt Miss Pamela is pleased to have a gentleman a-dancing after her. I don’t know one on us as wouldn’t be pleased; but them as has respect for their character and for their peace o’ mind--” “Mrs. Swayne, you must not speak like this to me,” said Mrs. Preston, feebly, from the sofa. “I have a bad headache, and I can’t argue with you; but you may be sure, though I don’t say much, I know how to take care of my own child. No, Pamela dear, don’t cry; and you’ll please not to say another word to me on this subject--not another word, or I shall have to go away.”