“Oh, that explains it;” she spoke with a smile which made her face quite beautiful, and I wondered at the taste of the Honourable Tom in exchanging her for her sister. “Now I dare say you know why I sent for you. For some years I have not seen very much of my sister, now the wife of Professor Fairthorn, a man well known in the scientific world. But a few weeks ago Captain Fairthorn asked me to allow his daughter by a previous marriage to spend a few days with me here; and I consented, for I knew him long before he married my sister, and have always felt a great regard for him. There is no reason why I should enter into that. Miss Fairthorn was here for about ten days, and she might have been longer but for you. Who are you, that you should dare to fall in love with her?” Now these words look very harsh as written, and would sound so too, if harshly spoken. But Miss Coldpepper scarcely seemed to mean them thus; for there was no contempt in her voice, and I thought that her glance was kind, though her face was very grave. Perhaps she was thinking of her own love-time; which would rouse at once pity for me, and ill-will towards the sister, who then had wronged her so. It was difficult for me to answer her, and I was in no hurry to do so; knowing from dialogues with Tabby Tapscott, that women are ready to go on again, and perhaps answer themselves, when provoked to do it. Not that I compared Miss Coldpepper with our poor Tabby for a moment; only that much the same rule applies to all women, when they grow unruly. Their main object is to say something striking, being forbidden by nature to strike otherwise. “You have nothing to say then,” continued the lady, without giving me time to know how much I had; “very well, I think that it is better so. I have tried to make every allowance for you, and I am glad not to find you at all defiant. Miss Fairthorn, of course, has no particular claims of birth to stand upon; for you know, and perhaps you have thought about that, that she has none of the Coldpepper blood in her system. I suppose, if she had, you would scarcely have dared to behave in this way, Mr. Orchardson!” “Certainly not, madam,” I replied with genuine truth, for I must have been frightened at the fearful temper of the family. And if Kitty had been a Coldpepper, she could not have owned the sweet face which had won me.