All looked up in amazement; Sylvia fixed her eyes on Dora, who began, even she, to feel uncomfortable. Such prefaces are like bats flying round a room in some old house; every one fears them, not knowing on whom they may alight. Minnie was most unconcerned of all, until her uncle, pitching his voice in its most tenor and unpleasant key, exclaimed--"Minnie Dalzell, I am addressing myself to you. This day I, and my worthy friend Burton, were in the old ruin, when you, forgetting all maiden modesty, left your horse and old Thomas, the coachman, to sit upon a heap of ruins with----" "For mercy's sake, uncle, not before him!" almost shrieked Minnie, springing up in terror of something, she scarcely knew what, and glancing at Burton. "Brother, brother!" cried Dorcas, grasping his arm, herself pale with anguish for her beloved niece; she knew Minnie better than any one else did, and dreaded the consequences of this ill-advised exposure, which would only harden a resolute mind, where reasoning and love might have soothed, and turned away from its will. "But I will speak, Dorcas!" cried he. "I am advised to do so, and publicly, to show her what people will think of her. Minnie, I say, was sitting alone on a heap of ruins with that scoundrel, Miles Tremenhere, this worthy man's base-born cousin." "Not base-born, uncle," cried Minnie, starting up again; she had dropped on her chair. At these words she forgot all but Miles's sacred love for his mother, who, by this slander of him, was doubly calumniated. "Not base-born, uncle, though that man say it. His mother was as pure as my own, or she had never given birth to so worthy a son!" then a sense of her shame, before so many, coming over her, she sank on her chair, and, covering her face, sobbed aloud. Dorcas clasped her in her arms; Dora, too, though trembling, pressed her hands, as she drew them from the face, which turned in maiden shame into Dorcas's neck. "Brother," cried Sylvia, with self-satisfied scorn, "you always are discovering some wonder. You are wrong--quite wrong--as usual. _If_ Minnie were there, 'twas wrong; but others are more to blame than she, and, I make no doubt, _could_ explain, _if they would_." She glanced angrily at Dora, who certainly was colouring, though without noticing Sylvia's personality. Lady Ripley looked amazement on all. Juvenal was completely thrown out; he had made up a complete discourse, questions, answers, prayers, confessions, and final forgiveness--for he loved Minnie dearly, in his little way. Marmaduke almost would have preferred the lane and Miles's society, to this scene. There, he knew in his heart, he had no actual violence to fear, for every day was not one of retributive justice, as when his cousin avenged poor Mary Burns's case; but here he dreaded some unseen trap, to draw him into something which would bring Miles in revenge down upon him.