"In that case I should tell you nothing, Lady Mitford; for there is little in my life that has not been painful. I daresay you would find it difficult to realize, if I could put it before you in the plainest words; and I am sure, even if you did realize it, you would judge it mercifully--you would remember the difficulties and the dangers of such an existence, and suffer them to have their weight as against its sins and sorrows. You know what it is to be motherless, Lady Mitford; but yours was a guarded childhood, hedged about with pious care and fatherly love,--they told me all about you down at Redmoor. Mine was a motherless childhood; and my father was a thief, and the companion of thieves. This is the simple English of the matter. You would not understand the refinements and distinctions by which the dishonest classes describe their different ranks in the army of thieves; you could not comprehend the scenes and the influences among which my childhood was passed; and I will not try to explain them, because they have no bearing upon what it concerns you to hear." She had rested her arm upon a table beside her chair, and supported her head on her hand. "My wretched childhood had passed by, and my more wretched girlhood had reached its prime, when I was brought in contact with Sir Charles Mitford." Georgie recoiled, turned very red, and uttered an exclamation. "I was associated at that time with some men who made their livelihood in a number of dishonest ways; and one of them had in his possession a document, by means of which he had maintained a hold over Mitford, then a young man of small means and very indirect expectations. The man I speak of died, and accident placed me in possession of the document. It was a forged bill!" Lady Mitford covered her face with her hands; and as Miss Gillespie continued, the slow tears began to force their way through the slender fingers. "Others knew of the existence of this bill, Lady Mitford, and I have no doubt whatever that they traded upon their knowledge. Every effort, direct and indirect, was made to get the bill out of my possession; but I resolved to keep it, and every effort failed. Perhaps I might have used it for my own purposes against Sir Charles some day, if I had never seen or known you. It is certain that I should have given it to him, and set him free for ever from an apprehension which constantly beset and tortured him, had I not known how unworthily he was treating you, how completely all the hard lessons of his life of poverty and shifts had failed to correct his low instincts and his utter untrustworthiness. Don't cry, dear Lady Mitford,--your tears pain me keenly; I must draw them forth a little while, and then I trust to dry them.