The composed and defiant announcement by Mrs. Wroat that she had adopted Lally Bird as her daughter and heiress, was like a bombshell flung into the enemy’s camp. Mrs. Blight stood as if turning to stone, in an utter panic, her eyes glaring upon Mrs. Wroat and upon Lally alternately, her chest heaving, her face livid. All her fine schemes of future grandeur became in an instant “airy visions fading into nothingness.” She beheld herself and her family upon the brink of insolvency, which this old lady’s fortune might have averted. She was convulsed with rage and amazement, and with bitter hatred of her young governess. What she might have done or said cannot be known, for Peters, desiring to spare her aged mistress a scene and expected reproaches, pushed the bank-notes she held into Mrs. Blight’s hand, and taking her by the arm, gently forced her out into the hall and closed the door upon her. This last indignity was too much for the disappointed woman. With a wild shriek, she fled precipitately down the stairs, and burst into the drawing-room and into her husband’s presence like an incarnate whirlwind. And here flinging herself into a chair, she gave way to a burst of hysterics as violent as terrifying. The first act of Mr. Blight was to deluge his wife with the contents of a carafe of water which happened to be at hand. Then bending over her and chafing her hands, he adjured her to tell him what was the matter, and if the children were all killed. “You--you beast!” gasped the wife, with the tones and breathing of a drowning woman. “You’ve ruined my new dress, and it cost fifteen shillings a yard, if it cost a penny! The dear knows where I am to get another. I expect to find myself in the union by this time next year, on account of that treacherous viper that I warmed in my bosom! Oh, my poor children--my poor ruined lambs!” “What do you mean, Laura?” demanded her husband impatiently. “Don’t be a fool, if you can help it, for once. What has happened?” “Everything has happened!” wailed Mrs. Blight. “We are wretched, good-for-nothing beggars. The old wretch up stairs has gone and left all her money to that jade of a governess--” “Speak sense, if you can. What do you mean, I ask again? How can Aunt Wroat have ‘gone and left all her money’ to Miss Bird? Is your mind wandering?”