If it had not been for overpowering excitement, curiosity, and the desire for warfare, which is native to the human breast, Patty would have stood upon her dignity, disregarded this peremptory call, and marched away. She almost tried to do so, feeling more or less what an immense advantage it would have given her, but her instinct was too strong--a double and complicated instinct which moved her as if she had not been at all a free agent: first, the impulse to obey my lady, which was a thing that might have been overcome, but second, the impulse to fight my lady, which was much less easy to master, and, last of all, an overpowering, dizzying, uncontrollable curiosity to know what she could have to say. She stepped down from her own door deliberately, however, and with all the elegance and eloquence she could put into her movements, and went slowly forward to the carriage door. She was in her best dress, which was not, perhaps, so becoming to Patty as the homelier attire, which was more perfect of its kind than the second-rate young ladyhood of her Sunday frock. Her hat was very smart with flowers and bows of velvet, which happened to be the fashion of the time, and she carried a parasol covered with lace, and wore a pair of light gloves, which were not in harmony with the colour of her dress--neither, indeed, were Lady Piercey’s own gloves in harmony with her apparel, but that was a different matter. The old lady’s keen glance took in every article of Patty’s cheap wardrobe, with a comment on the way these creatures dress! as she came forward with foolish deliberation, as if to allow herself time to be examined from head to foot. “You are Patty, that used to come out so well in the examinations,” Lady Piercey said, with a breathlessness which showed what excitement existed on her side. “I am Patience Hewitt, my lady, if that is what you’re pleased to ask.” Margaret sat looking on trembling at these two belligerents: her aunt, who overbore her, Margaret, without any trouble silenced all her arguments and shut her mouth; and this girl of the village and public-house, the Sunday-school child whom she remembered, the pet of the rector, the clever little monitor and ringleader--Patty, of the Seven Thorns, something between a housemaid and a barmaid, and Lady Piercey of Greyshott! The looker-on, acknowledging herself inferior to both of them, felt that they were not badly matched. “Ah!” said Lady Piercey, “yes, that’s what I asked. You’re Robert Hewitt’s daughter, I suppose, who keeps the public-house on our property?” “Begging your pardon, my lady, the old inn of the Seven Thorns is my father’s property, and has been his and his family’s for I don’t know how many hundred years.” “Oh!” cried Lady Piercey with a stare, “you speak up very bold, young woman; yet you’ve been bred up decently, I suppose, and taught how you ought to conduct yourself in that condition in which God has placed you.”