"I s'pose you think it's very respectful to pop your saucy head in at an old woman's window, and set her all of a tremble and then tell her, because she is not grinning for her own amusement, that she looks awfully cross, and that you are afraid she will bite you. You are a nice one to talk of being afraid; you, who never showed an atom of fear of anything from your cradle up. If you were a bit afraid, when you were out in the woods, for instance, and meet a long-legged animal with a smooth tongue, and eyes that ought to make you nervous, 'twouldn't be to your discredit, I think. Of course, I don't mean to say that you don't meet him quite by accident; oh, no! And I don't _say_ that he ain't a very nice, respectable sort of chap, whatever I may _think_. You are just like your poor mother, and if this fellow with a name that might as well be Devil, and done with it--" "There, now, auntie--" Madeline's face flushed, and she put the cat down with sudden emphasis; "I won't let you say bad things of Mr. Davlin, for I think you would be sorry for it afterward." She drew a low seat to the side of the old lady, and looking her full in the face, spoke in a voice low, intense, full of purpose. "Auntie, it is time you told me more about my mother. You have evaded, my step-father has forbidden, my questioning, but if I am ever to know aught of my dead mother's history, I intend to hear it from your lips to-day." Surprise for a time held the old woman speechless; a look of sorrow and affection drove the querulousness out of her face and voice. "What ails you, child?" she said, wonderingly. "Do you want to make Mr. Arthur hate me more, and keep you from me entirely? Don't you know, dearie, how he swore that the day I told you these things, he would forbid you to visit me; and if you disobeyed, take you away where I could not even hear of you?" Tears were in Hagar's eyes, and she held out her wrinkled hands imploringly. "Don't tease your old nurse, dearie; don't. I can't tell you these things now, and they could not make you any happier, child. Wait a little; the time will come--" "So will old age, auntie; and death, and all the knowledge we want, I suppose, when it is too late to make it profitable. Well, auntie, I will tell you something in exchange for my mother's story, and to make it easier for you to relate it. But first, will you answer a few questions?--wait, I know what you would say," as the old woman made a deprecating movement, and essayed to speak. "Hear me, now." Hagar looked at the girl earnestly for a moment, and then said, quietly: "Go on then, dearie." "First," pursued Madeline; "my father dislikes me very much; is this the truth?" Hagar nodded assent. "He dislikes you because you were always good to me." Here she paused, and Hagar again nodded. "Because you were attached to my mother." Again she paused, and again the old woman bowed assent.