She relaxed a little at my words, as I thought, and looked gratified, but colored scarlet as she looked at the text. "What should it mean, save just what it says?" she asked, with asperity, yet displaying a certain uneasiness. "'If any person hath done you a wrong, go first to him alone, and tell him his fault in all kindness.' I see nothing hard to understand in that. You are trifling with me, Mrs. Merton!" "By no means, Lady Jemima," said I; "I never was more in earnest in my life. 'Tis upon that very errand I have come, since you have not come to me. And I desire humbly to know what it is that you have so much against me, since your return." "I have not said that I had anything against you," she answered. "Why should you think I have?" "I would fain hope so," I answered her. "It would be lack of charity to think that you should treat me so unkindly, and strive to set my honored mistress against me, unless you had some cause for so doing." "How do you know that I have tried to set my sister against you?" she asked. "Because I heard you—much against my own will," I answered her; and then told her how it came about. "And I would fain know, my Lady, who hath so changed your mind toward me, or who hath traduced me to you?" "Nobody has traduced you!" she said, shortly. "But somebody has given you a bad character of me, I am sure," I said; "and I have a right, with all due respect, to ask who that person is." "It is one who has known you ever since you were born," said Lady Jemima, "since you must know; one on whom you have heaped many injuries, even to the driving her forth of her own home, among strangers, but who still wishes you well. She hath told me naught of your unkindness toward herself, though I can gather enough; nor did she tell me anything directly, till I asked her." "Felicia!" I exclaimed, enlightened all at once. "I see it all now. Felicia has been poisoning your Ladyship's mind against me." "My mind is not poisoned against you," she answered, coldly, "but I have learned enough of your rebellious temper, your disobedient carriage toward your parents, and your openly avowed heresies in religion, to make me aware that you are no fit companion for my brother's child. Felicia, as you disrespectfully call her, seems to me a most religious, and virtuous, and sweet young person, with a mind most open to receive the truth, and a most becoming modesty and deference,—a quality, Mrs. Merton, in which you yourself are very deficient, let me tell you. I saw some things in your conduct, even before I left home, which did not please me, and I am convinced that you are no fit person for your place." "May I ask what those things were, my Lady?" I asked. "Your flirting and coquetting with Mr. Penrose, for one thing," answered Lady Jemima. "Yes, you may laugh as you please, but I have seen what passed. You know he is all but vowed to celibacy, and it would be a fine triumph to your Puritan notions, to make him false to his profession."