"That will do, Miss Marston. Put down the candle--the glare hurts my eyes. Full of fancies!" she murmurs. "It is true I see shadows; I hear voices: I am not certain at times whether I am awake or asleep. But what I said to you to-day," she exclaims in a louder tone, "is no fancy, Miss Marston." "There is no occasion for you to repeat it, Lady Temple." "I am the best judge of that, Miss Marston, and I do not intend to be misunderstood. I tell you now, plainly, that I sent my nephew away because I saw what was going on between you." "Lady Temple!" cries Nelly indignantly. "You must not agitate me, Miss Marston. Oblige me by holding this glass while I speak. If you wish to leave the house, you may do so." "It is so generous and good of you to threaten me!" says the girl scornfully; "knowing my position. If I had any shelter but this, I would not stop with you another day." "You are only showing your ingratitude, Miss Marston, I do not threaten you, and I will not be contradicted. I promised your mother before she died that you should have a home here while I live, and I will not turn you away. If you go, you go of your own accord. I tell you again I know perfectly well what is stirring within that busy head of yours. You are like your mother, no better, and no worse, and I knew her well enough; never content, never content unless every man she saw was at her feet." "And yet," says Nelly more quietly, "you have spoken slightingly of her more than once because she sacrificed herself, as you term it, for love." "Yes, she was caught at last, and was punished." "It was a happy punishment, then. She would not have changed her lot with yours, Lady Temple." "She was punished, I tell you. As you will be, if you do not take care. You will live to prove it, if you are not mindful of yourself. You have a pretty face--psha! we are women and no one but ourselves hears what I say. I had a pretty face once, and I knew its power, and used it as you wish to do. But not with my nephew, Miss Marston, mark that! You have all the world to choose from, with the exception of my nephew. And you fancy you know him, I have no doubt--simpleton! You know as much as a baby of the world and of men of the world. Take an old woman's counsel--marry in your own station----" "My mother was a lady," interrupts Nelly, with a curl of her lip, "and I am one." "Pooh! Nonsense! You have no money. You are a poor girl, and no lady--as ladies go," she adds unconsciously uttering a truism in her attempt to soften the effect of her words. "There's the gardener's son. You can't do better than marry him. His father has been all his life at Springfield, and has saved money I hear. He is continually making you presents of flowers, and the housekeeper tells me----" With a burning consciousness that these words are reaching other ears than her own, Nelly again interrupts her mistress: "When you have finished insulting me, Lady Temple, I shall be glad to leave the room."