“You would not have any right to say such a thing,” said Janet, with decision. “Don’t you tell us we’ve all got the right, both men and girls, to do what is best for ourselves and to judge for ourselves? and would you be the tyrant to take that from us? Oh, no, father, no! I never would have said a word but for this. Many a one has said to me, ‘What are you going for? I wouldn’t go a step in your place. I’d take a situation, and stay where all my friends are.’ That’s been said to me--times and times; and I’ve always said ‘No. Where father goes I must go.’ But, all the same, I always hated going. For one thing, I know I should be ill all the way. I hate a ship; and I hate living in the country, where you would never see so much as a street-lamp, nor hear anything but cows mooing, and sheep baaing; but I would have gone and never said a word. Only now,” cried Janet, with rising vehemence, “what _would_ be the good of me going, or of _him_ going? If I was married I shouldn’t be of no use to you; and what in all the world should take _him_ there, if it wasn’t following after me?” Her father stood and gazed at her stupefied. His very jaw dropped with wonder. She had never made so long a speech in her life; but now that she had spoken, it was all as clear, as definitely settled and arranged, as pitiless in its reasonableness, as if, instead of a girl of twenty, she had been a philosopher laying down the law. All her timidity was gone. She looked him full in the face while she ended her lengthened argument. As for Spears, the very power of speech seemed to be taken from him. A sound like a laugh, harsh and jarring, came from him when she ended. “So that’s how it is?” he said, and turned and went back to his bench like a man who did not know what he was doing. Janet was glad enough to be thus released. She who had known her own sentiments all along was not startled by them as he was; but she felt that it was best now she had uttered them to let them have time and quiet to work their necessary effect. She turned to the eight-day clock, which had been ticking solemnly all this time in the corner, with a half shriek. “Good gracious!” she cried, “it’s past nine, and me still here. Whatever will Miss Stichel say?” CHAPTER XV. Lady Markham walked away quickly, tingling in every nerve. She felt herself insulted and betrayed. She had gone to this poor man as if he had been a gentleman, with full confidence in him, and he had not justified her faith. A poor gentleman would have felt the impossibility, would have seen that a girl of no importance, without money, or rank, or connections, could not expect to marry Paul Markham, the heir of all the family honours. A person of any cultivation would have felt this, had there been the best blood in England in his veins. But this clown did not feel it; this common workman, wood-carver, tradesman, he did not see it. He ventured to look her in the face and tell her that they must make up their minds to it.