“It is, perhaps, a big word; but it cannot touch me, that am not of the kind that breaks my word or changes my mind,” said Lily, raising her head with a gesture full of pride. “Oh, Miss Lily, my dear, I ken what the Ramsays are!” cried the faithful maid; “but there might be two meanings till it,” and she breathed a half sigh over her young mistress’s head. “You think, I know--and maybe I once thought, too; but you may dismiss that from your mind, as I do,” said the girl, with a shake of the head as if she were shaking something off. And then she added, clasping her hands together: “Oh, if I were strong enough just to say, ‘I am not caring about your money. I am not afraid to be poor. I can work for my own living, and you can give your siller where you please!’ Oh, Beenie, that is what I want to say!” “No, my darlin’, no; you must not say that. Oh, you must not say that!” Robina cried. “And why? I must not do this or the other, and who are you that dares to say so? I am my mother’s daughter as well as my father’s, and if that’s not as good blood, it has a better heart. I might go there--they would not refuse me.” “Without a penny,” said Robina. “Can you think o’t, Miss Lily? And is that no banishment too?” Lily rose from her chair, shaking herself free from her maid, with her pretty hair all hanging about her shoulders. It was pretty hair, though it was brown like every-body else’s, full of incipient curl, the crispness yet softness of much life. She shook it about her with her rapid movement, bringing out all the undertones of color, and its wavy freedom gave an additional sparkle to her eyes and animation to her look. “Without a penny!” she cried. “And who is caring about your pennies? You and the like of you, but not me, Beenie--not me! What do I care for the money, the filthy siller, the pound notes, all black with the hands they’ve come through! Am I minding about the grand dinners that are never done, and the parties, where you never see those you want to see, and the balls, where---- Just a little cottage, a drink of milk, and a piece of cake off the girdle, and plenty to do: it’s that that would please me!” “Oh, my bonnie Miss Lily!” was all that Beenie said. “And when I see,” said the girl, pacing up and down the room, her hair swinging about her shoulders, her white under-garments all afloat about her in the energy of her movements, “that other folk think of that first. Whatever you do, you must not risk your fortune. Whatever you have to bear, you must not offend your uncle, for he has the purse-strings in his hand. Oh, my uncle, my uncle! It’s not,” she cried, “that I wouldn’t be fond of him if he would let me, and care for what he said, and do what he wanted as far as I was able: but his money! I wish--oh, I wish his money--his money--was all at the bottom of the sea!”