“Yes, I know,” he said, “and it ain’t for me to say anything, for I’m not a swell like these as you have such a high opinion of.” “I have no high opinion of them. I hate them!” cried Patty, with set teeth. “Well, I’ve often thought,” said Roger, “though I know I’ve no right to--but just in fancy don’t you know--as Patty Hewitt of the Seven Thorns would have been a happier woman in the nice little ’ouse as I could give her now, and never harming nobody, than a grand lady like Mrs. Piercey, with so much trouble as you have had, and no real friends.” “How do you know,” cried Patty, “that I have no friends?” and then, after a moment’s struggle to keep her self-command, she burst into a violent storm of tears. “Oh, don’t say anything to me!” she cried, “don’t say anything to me! I haven’t had a kind word from a soul, nor known what it was to have an easy heart or a bit of pleasure, not since the night you came to the little door, Roger Pearson--no, nor long before.” There was a silence, broken only by her passionate sobs and the sound of the weeping which she could not control, until Roger moved from his chair and went up to the sofa on which she had thrown herself, hiding her tears and flushed face upon the cushions. He laid his hand upon her shoulder with a caressing touch, and said, softly, “Don’t now, don’t now, Patty dear. Don’t cry, there’s a love.” “And when you think all I’ve gone through,” said Patty, among her sobs, “and how I’ve given up everything to do my duty! When you said to me that night you had been at a dance--Oh! and me never seeing a soul, never anything but waiting on them, and serving them, and nursing them, or playing nonsense games from morning to night! And then when the old gentleman died and left me what I never asked him for, then everybody taking up against me as if I had committed a sin; and never one coming near me, never, never one, but Meg in London coming to speak out of charity, because I was alone. Yes, and I was alone,” said Patty, raising herself up, drying her eyes hastily, with a nervous hand, “and I’ll be alone all my life; but I’ll never take charity as if I was some poor creature, from her or from him!” “You needn’t be alone a moment more than you like, Patty,” said Roger. “I was always fond of you, you well know. You jilted me to marry _'im_, poor fellow, but I’ll not say a word about that. You’re not ’appy in this great ’ouse, and you know it, nor you’ll never be. I’m not saying anything one way or another about them ladies and swells: maybe they might have been a little kinder and done no ’arm. But you’re an interloper among them, you know you are; and I’m not one as ’olds with putting another man’s nose out of joint, or taking his ’ouse over ’is ’ead. I wouldn’t, if it was a bit of a cottage, or your father’s old place at the Seven Thorns; and no more would I here. There ain’t no blessing on it, that’s my opinion.” “I don’t know, Roger Pearson, that your opinion was ever asked,” Patty said.