“Did you mean that?” he said. “Do you really think that I have closed doors but opened none, and that girls would not marry if they knew--” “I said it, therefore I must have meant it,” cried Nancy, with a flush of angry red. “If you sit and listen to what women are saying! But I never say anything I will not stand to. Yes: what door have you opened to me, Arthur? it was mother’s words first. Not your father and mother’s, which was the first to be thought of, nor any of your friends’; but mother’s has always been open to you.” “Oh, hush, hush!” cried Mrs. Bates. “Oh, children, you don’t know what you’re doing. Why should you quarrel? Nancy, hold your tongue--you’ll be sorry after that you ever said a word.” “Not I!” cried Nancy. “I am not one to bottle things up. I’ll say it out plain before you both, and you can be my witness, mother. When I knew Arthur first, I never thought what he was. Gentleman or poor man it was all one to me. He was my fancy, and that was all I thought of. When that man came, that Durant, then I began to see what I was bringing on me; but it was too late to draw back. And I said to myself, I’d let him see it wasn’t his money I wanted, and that I’d never kootoo to one of his grand friends. And I never have,” she cried, with angry energy, “and I never will. You’ve opened no doors to me--nor I don’t want you to; but you shan’t think that it’s been a grand thing for me to marry you, neither you nor anyone belonging to you. It hasn’t. You’d separate me from my own people if you could, and you don’t give me any other; and I say again, if girls only knew--” “Mrs. Bates,” said Arthur, with trembling lips. “I do not think I have tried to separate your daughter from you. I may defend myself so far as this; and I had hoped that some time or other she would have gone with me to knock at that door which you upbraid me with not having opened. But what am I to do if, as she tells you, she never will? she never has shown the slightest inclination to do so, that is the truth indeed.” “It was them that should have come to her--that’s what she thinks,” said Mrs. Bates, “and she’s hot-tempered. You know she’s hot-tempered. She don’t mean half of what she says. Oh, don’t now, don’t quarrel, children!” cried the mother. In the _mêlée_ Sarah Jane thought she might as well take a part too. “I don’t wonder that Nancy was affronted. That stuck up Miss Curtis coming with her ‘dear Arthur’s,’ and her ‘dear brother’s,’ and taking no notice, no more than if we were cabbages, of us; but as for Nancy not thinking of who he was, and that it was a grand marriage, oh, didn’t she just! You may tell that to those that will believe it, you had better not tell it to me.”