"Do so," she said. "It is a long story. I must go back to the days when I was a child, and your mother, Miss Julia, took me away from my home to hers. She was of an imperious will and proud nature; her mother had died at giving her birth, and her father had never controlled her in any way. She was as wild and wayward as the trees that grew in the forest near here, when they were shaken by the wind. With her, to ask was to have, and when she brought me home and declared her intention of bringing me up, and making a companion and plaything of me, no objection was raised, and she petted and scolded me by turns, as it suited her haughty will. At first I disliked her, then feared, and at length loved, worshipped her, as some beautiful spirit. Her father died; but then it was too late to save his child, or let others teach her wild spirit lessons of meekness and obedience; then your grandmother came and took us both away to live in her own home. She was a widow, with two sons, the eldest not quite so old as Miss Julia. "A change came over your mother. She loved. Loved the eldest of the two, your father; loved as only she could love, with all the wild, impetuous passion of her nature. It would have been strange had he not loved her in return--so beautiful, so wayward, so bright a being as she was then. They were engaged to be married, and, I believe, had they married then all would have gone well, and perhaps the evil that followed been averted. But they did not marry, they tarried--tarried until another girl, a niece, was left desolate, and she too came to Brampton." Jane, or Tabitha, paused for a moment, then went on more slowly, "She was, I believe, an angel of goodness, as pure as she was fair, and as meek and gentle as your mother was ungovernable. From this time nothing went right. Your father and my mistress had words together oftener than formerly; but while she wept and lamented in secret, he would seek Miss Mary, and pour out his wounded heart to her. By degrees Miss Julia grew to learn it, and became jealous. Then, with the fierceness of her nature, she would storm and rave if she but saw Master Robert speaking to her; and yet, when the angry fit was over, be as humbly loving, as passionately sorry. "Things could not go on like this for ever. I believe her temper was fairly wearing out your father's love, and that he would gladly have turned over to Miss Mary if he could; but I, who was set as a watch and a spy over the poor young thing--she was eighteen years younger than your mother--saw that her heart was another's, even young Mr. Archer's, who was part tutor, part companion to your father's younger brother. How I hated her then--for I had dared to love him myself--and determined on her ruin! How I hid the secret that would have made Miss Julia so happy in the deepest recesses of my heart, and urged my mistress on to believe that Miss Mary loved Master Robert!"