"Ah! that _was_ bad; but then he needn't hev made a fuss. He didn't ask _your_ consent when he got married, I s'pose. Didn't like the young man you kept company with, eh?" "No; he hated him. My father was rich, and I ran off with a poor actor." "A play-acter! Why, you must hev bin crazy!" "Oh, I was--I was! I was a child, and did not know what I was doing. I thought my life with him would have been all light, and music, and glitter, and dazzle, such as I saw on the stage; but I soon found out the difference." "'Spect you did. Law, law! what fools there is in this 'ere world!" said Miss Jerusha, in a moralizing tone. "My father disowned me." ("And sarved you right, too!" put in Miss Jerusha _sotto voce_.) "My family cast me off. I joined the company to which my husband belonged, and did the tragedy business with him; and so for eight years we wandered about from city to city, from town to town, always poor and needy, for Arthur drank and gambled, and as fast as we earned money it was spent." "And _you're_ a play-acter, too!" cried Miss Jerusha recoiling in horror. Miss Jerusha, trained in the land of "steady habits," had, from her earliest infancy, been taught to look upon theaters as only a little less horribly wicked than the place unmentionable to ears polite, and upon all "play-actors" as the immediate children and agents of the father of evil himself. She had never until now had the misfortune to come in contact with one personally, having only heard of them as we hear of goblins, warlocks, demons, and other "children of night." What wonder, then, that at this sudden, awful revelation she started back and almost hurled the frail form from her in loathing and horror. But a fierce clutch was laid on her shoulder--she almost fancied for an instant it was Satan himself come for his child--until, looking up, she saw the fiercely blazing eyes and witch-like face of little Georgia gleaming upon it. "You ugly, wicked old woman!" she passionately burst out with, "if you dare to hurt my mamma, I'll--I'll _kill_ you!" And so dark, and fierce, and elfish did she look at that moment, that Miss Jerusha fairly quailed before the small, unearthly looking sprite. "I'm not a-going to tetch your ma. Get out o' this, and leave me go!" said Miss Jerusha, shaking off with some difficulty the human burr who clung to her with the tenacity of a crab, and glared upon her with her shining black eyes. "Georgia, love, go and sit down. Oh, you wild, stormy, savage child, what _ever_ will become of you when I am gone? Do, pray, excuse her," said the woman, faintly, lifting her eyes pleadingly to Miss Jerusha's angry face; "she has had no one to control her, or subdue her wild, willful temper, and has grown up a crazy, mad-headed, half-tamed thing. If you have children of your own, you will know how to make allowance for her."