Ann Eliza's resentment now took fire. "Who are you, that talk in this way? You are a robber, and you know it! If you don't repent you will be lost! Seek religion now. You will soon sin away your day of grace, and what an awful eternity--" Miss Meacham had fallen into this hortatory vein, partly because it was habitual with her, and consequently easier in a moment of confusion than any other, and partly because it was her forte and she thought that these earnest and pathetic exhortations were her best weapons. But when she reached the words "awful eternity," Pinkey cried out sneeringly: "Hold up, Ann Eliza! You don't run over me that way. I'm bad enough, God knows, and I'm afraid I shall find my way to hell some day. But if I do I expect to give you a civil good morning on my arrival, or welcome you if you get there after I do. You see I know all about you, and it's no use for you to glory-hallelujah me." Ann Eliza did not think of anything appropriate to the occasion, and so she remained silent. "I hear you have got young Goodwin on your hooks, now, and that you mean to marry him against his will. Is that so?" "No, it isn't. He proposed to me himself." "O, yes! I suppose he did. You made him!" "I didn't." "I suppose not. You never did. Not even in Pennsylvania. How about young Harlow? Who made him?" Ann Eliza changed color. "Who are you?" she asked. "And that fellow with dark hair, what's his name? The one you danced with down at Stevens's one night." "What do you bring up all my old sins for?" asked Ann Eliza, weeping. "You know I have repented of all of them, and now that I am trying to lead a new life, and now that God has forgiven my sins and let me see the light of his reconciled countenance----" "Stop, Ann Eliza," broke out Pinkey. "You sha'n't glory-hallelujah me in that style, confound you! Maybe God has forgiven you for driving Harlow to drink himself into tremens and the grave, and for sending that other fellow to the devil, and for that other thing, you know. You wouldn't like me to mention it. You've got a very pretty face, Ann Eliza,--you know you have. But Brother Goodwin don't love you. You entangled him; you know you did. Has God forgiven you for that, yet? Don't you think you'd better go to the mourners' bench next time yourself, instead of talking to the mourners as if you were an angel? Come, Ann Eliza, look at yourself and see if you can sing glory-hallelujah. Hey?" "Let me go," plead the young woman, in terror.