And Nancy, as Mrs. Bates divined, on being sounded, was furious. She had no words to express her indignation. She rushed out in hot haste to find Arthur, and denounce his family to him. He had left Mr. Eagles, and was living in lodgings on the Green, and there Nancy flew in hot haste, tapping at his window, which was on the ground floor, and calling him forth. She would have gone in, but it had been evident to her that this was not the kind of thing that pleased Arthur. She burst forth into a furious assault upon his family the moment he joined her. “If it was not just giving in to them, I’d never see you more,” she said, “that is what you call gentlefolks--to come undermining, offering money, insulting folks that are a deal better than themselves!” “Trying to ruin my happiness,” said Arthur, with flashing eyes; “that is not the thing you seem to think of.” “How can I, when it’s me that’s insulted?” cried the girl. “Oh! I’d like to give them a bit of my mind. I’d just like to tell my lady what a girl like me thinks of her. I’d like to tell her that, just to spite her. Just to show how I despise her, I’d marry you if you hadn’t a penny.” “Nancy, my mother has nothing to do with this,” said Arthur, to whom, as was natural enough, this form of moral obligation was not the most delightful. “I don’t mean to say that you have not a perfect right to be indignant. But it is not my mother that is to blame.” “Oh, yes, so you think,” cried the girl; “but it’s always women that do the worst things. I’m not afraid of men. They may stab you bold to your face, but they don’t do this sort of sneaking, cruel thing. I’d give anything I’ve got in the world just for one half-hour with my lady, her and me.” “My mother has nothing to do with it,” repeated Arthur; but though he was convinced on this point, his mother, who had nothing to do with it, suddenly appeared to him as an enemy; and he, too, felt a hot resentment against her in his heart. And when he had taken Nancy home, which he did somewhat against her will, for she did not think his escort at all necessary; he rushed to Mr. Rolt, the lawyer, and poured such floods of wrath upon him that the veteran almost quailed. He wrote to Sir John that evening that Arthur was quite impracticable, and that “affairs must take their course.” “If I had known earlier, something might have been done, for the parents did not seem unwilling to compromise,” he wrote, which made Sir John, in his turn, curse the old formalist. “If I had but gone myself!” he said. Lady Curtis was completely innocent of this mission; perhaps she would not have disapproved of it, but certainly she herself would have gone more delicately to work. She was informed of it by a furious letter from Arthur, which cost her many tears.