And this had been his mother’s friend, this hard, prosperous, vulgar woman! they had been girls together, and had shared all manner of simple, girlish pleasures! Eustace looked at the woman sadly, thinking how wide a difference there must needs have been between the two girls, and how little real sympathy or womanly tenderness could have ever softened the heart of Mrs. Willows. “I have to apologize for this intrusion,” he said, after a pause; “for the business that brings me to Bayham is a personal matter, which can have very little interest for you. I am anxious to obtain all possible information respecting a family of the name of Mayfield, and more especially Miss Mayfield, the only daughter of a librarian in this town, who, I am given to understand, was very intimate with you some four-and-twenty years ago.” The lady’s mouth, tight and hard at the best of times, tightened and hardened itself to an abnormal degree as Eustace said this. A pale fire kindled in the cold, gray eyes, and the stiff shoulders and elbows adjusted themselves anew with increased stiffness. “Yes,” said Mrs. Willows, “I knew Celia Mayfield.” “You and she were friends, I believe?” “We were _companions_,” replied Mrs. Willows, with spiteful promptitude. “Even at this distance of time I should blush to own that Celia Mayfield and I were ever friends.” The whitey-brown complexion of the draper’s wife seemed incapable of anything approaching a blush; but Eustace’s face glowed with an angry crimson as the woman said this. “May I inquire _why_ you would be ashamed to confess your friendship for Miss Mayfield?” he asked, his voice tremulous with suppressed passion. It was so difficult to sit quietly by while a spiteful woman belied his mother’s name; it was so difficult to refrain from crying out: “I am her son, and am ready to uphold her as the best and purest of women!” And to own himself her son, would have been to betray the sad secret of her hapless life. “May I ask what reason you have to be ashamed of your girlish friendship?” he repeated, in steadier tones, when he had waited some moments for Mrs. Willows’ reply. “Because Celia Mayfield’s conduct was shameful,” answered the woman; “though, goodness knows, it’s not much wonder that a girl who had been spoiled, and petted, and flattered, until she didn’t know whether she stood on her head or her heels, _did_ turn out badly. Mr. and Mrs. Mayfield made a fool of their daughter. _I_ was an only daughter, and an only child, too, for the matter of that; but my father was a sensible man, and _I_ was never brought up to read novels and think myself a beauty. I kept house for my poor pa when I was fourteen years of age; and if there was a halfpenny wrong in my accounts, he didn’t hesitate to box my ears. And I feel the benefit of it now,” added Mrs. Willows, triumphantly. “This business would not be what it is if my father’s property had been left to a frivolous person.”