“I wish,” she said, “that you would let me alone. I am doing nothing to anybody. I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that. What have I done? I have done nothing that is wrong. Oh, I wish--I wish Uncle John was here!” she exclaimed suddenly, and in spite of herself and all her pride and defensive instincts, suddenly began to cry, like the child she still was. “It would be a very good thing if he were here; he would perhaps bring you to your senses. A young man that you have kept dancing about you all the summer, and let him think you liked his society, and was pleased to see him when he came, and never a thought in your head of turning him from the door. And now when he has spoken to your father, and offered himself and all, in the most honourable way. Dear bless me, Effie, what has the young man done to you that you have led him on like this, and made a fool of him, and then to send him away?” “I have never led him on,” cried Effie through her tears. “I have not made a fool of him. If he liked to come, that was nothing to anybody, and I never--never----” “It is very easy to speak. Perhaps you think a young man has no pride? when they are just made up of it! Yes--you have led him on: and now he will be made a fool of before all the county. For everybody has seen it; it will run through the whole countryside; and the poor young man will just be scorned everywhere, that has done no harm but to think more of you than you deserve.” “There’s far too much of this,” said Mr. Ogilvie, who prided himself a little on his power to stop all female disturbances and to assert his authority. “Janet, you’ll let the girl alone. And, Effie, you’ll see that you don’t set up your face and answer back, for it is a thing I will not allow. Dear me, is that tea not coming? I will have to go away without it if it is not ready. I should have thought, with all the women there are in this house, it might be possible to get a cup of tea.” “And that is true indeed,” said his wife, “but they will not keep the kettle boiling. The kettle should be always aboil in a well-cared-for house. I tell them so ten times in a day. But here it is at last. You see you are late, George; you have kept your master waiting. And Effie----” But Effie had disappeared. She had slid out of the room under cover of old George and his tray, and had flown upstairs through the dim passages to her own room, where all was dark. There are moments where the darkness is more congenial than the light, when a young head swims with a hundred thoughts, and life is giddy with its over-fulness, and a dark room is a hermitage and place of refuge soothing in its contrast with all that which is going through the head of the thinker, and all the pictures that float before her (as in the present case--or his) eyes. She had escaped like a bird into its nest: but not without carrying a little further disturbance with her.