“There!” she said, setting down her tray with a little violence; “it’s good stuff enough, but it puts no more heart and strength into you than if you was a mouse. Too much is as bad, or maybe worse, than none at all. And, I tell you, I know some that would no more hear me named disrespectful like that--or any way but Miss Hewitt, Mr. Hewitt of the Seven Thorns’ daughter--than I would demean myself to carrying on like a barmaid with every one that comes for a glass of beer into this house.” “I beg your pardon, Patty,” said the young man; “I meant no harm. When you’re Mrs. Gervase Piercey there’s never one of them will dare mention your name without taking off his hat.” “Oh, you block!” cried Patty, exasperated. She paused, however, with an evident sense that to make her meaning clear to him would be impossible; yet added, after a moment, “If I can’t be respected as Miss Hewitt, I’ll never seek respect under no man’s name. There’s your beer, Mr. Gervase; and as soon as you’ve drunk it I advise you to go back to your parents, for you’ll get no more here.” “Oh! Patty, don’t you be so cruel.” “I’ll be as cruel as I think proper. And I’ll draw father’s beer for them as I think proper, and nobody else. You’re the spoiled child at the Hall, Mr. Gervase, but no one cares _that_ for you here!” And she, too, snapped her thumb and forefinger, in scorn of any subjection to ordinary prejudices, and shone radiant, in her defiance, in the homely scene to which she gave so much life. Patty was not a beautiful girl, as perhaps you may suppose. She had bright eyes, very well able to flash with indignation when necessary, or even with rage. She had a fine country complexion, with the gift, which is not so usual among the lowly born, of changing colour as her sentiments changed: flashing forth in wrath, and calming down in peace; and when she was excited, with an angry sparkle in her eyes, and the colour rising and falling, there was a _faux air_ of beauty about her, which impressed the minds of those who exposed themselves to any such blaze of resentment. Her features, however, were not very good, and there was a hardness in the lines, which, no doubt, would strengthen in later years. She had a trim figure, a brisk light step, an air of knowing her own mind, and fully intending to carry out all its purposes, which made a great impression upon the shiftless and languid generally, and upon Gervase Piercey in particular. Perhaps Patty had a little too much the air, in her sharp intelligence, of the conventional _soubrette_, to have charmed a squire’s son of greater intellectual perceptions. But Gervase knew nothing about _soubrettes_, or any other types, theatrical or otherwise. He knew vaguely what he saw, but no more; and that sharp intelligence, that brisk energy, that air of knowing her own mind, was more captivating to him than anything he had ever seen. He, whom everybody snubbed, who was accustomed to be laughed at, who knew so much as to