Yet she justified herself to herself with the consideration that it was in the end kindest to cut down ruthlessly any springing expectation that might have started to life at the words of Simon Verstage. The hostess cast a glance at Mehetabel, and saw that her face was quivering, that all color had gone out of her cheeks, that her hands were contracted as with the cramp. "I had no wish to hurt you," said the landlady; "but facks are facks, and you may pull down the blinds over 'em wi'out putting them out o' existence. There's Laura Tickner--got a face like a peony. She sez it's innade modesty; but we all knows it's arrysippelas, and Matthew Maunder tells us his nose comes from indigestion; but it's liquor, as I've the best reason to know. Matabel, I love you well, but always face facks. You can't get rid of facks any more than you can get rid of fleas out o' poultry." Mrs. Verstage disappeared through the doorway. Mehetabel seated herself on the bench. She could not follow the hostess, for her limbs trembled and threatened to give way. She folded her arms on her lap, and leaned forward, with her eyes on the ground. "A charity girl! Only a charity girl!" She said the words to herself again and again. Her eyes burnt; a spray hung on her eyelids. Her lips were contracted with pain, spasms ran through her breast. "Only a charity girl! She'd never, never a'sed that had she loved me. She don't." Then came a sob. Mehetabel tried to check it, but could not, and the sound of that sob passed through the house. It was followed by no other. The girl recovered herself, leaned back against the wall, and looked at the twilight sky. There was no night now. The season was near midsummer:-- "Barnaby bright, All day and no night." Into the luminous blue sky Mehetabel looked steadily, and did battle with her own self in her heart. That which had been said so shortly was true; had it been wrapped up in filagree--through all disguise the solid unpleasant truth would remain as core. If that were true, then why should she be so stung by the few words that contained the truth? It was not the words that had hurt her--she had heard them often at school--it was that "Mother" had said them. It was the way in which they had been uttered. Mrs. Verstage had ever been kind to the girl; more affectionate when she was quite a child than when she became older. Gradually the hostess had come to use her, and using her as a servant, to regard her in that light.