When John Brancker had brought his narrative to a close, Hermia sat awhile without speaking. Then she got up, and flinging her arms round John's neck, she kissed him twice very tenderly; then she crossed to the opposite side of the fireplace and did the same to Aunt Charlotte. "Whoever my unknown relatives may be," she said, with a little catch in her breath, "they cannot care greatly about me. They chose to cast me off when I was a child, and they are evidently determined that I shall never know more about them than I do now. Why should I care more for them than they do for me, or, indeed, trouble myself about them in any way? If they were to make themselves known to-morrow, I could never learn to love them as I love you, my dear uncle and aunt--for I shall still continue to be your niece, shall I not?--as I have always been. Nothing you have told me can change or alter in any way the relationship between us, or cause me to love you one whit less than I have always loved you. To you I owe everything; to my unknown relatives, nothing. As for the money, it belongs of right to you, and yours it must and shall be. Not one shilling of it will I ever touch." "My dear--my dear, that is a very rash thing of you to say. Consider----" "No, aunt, I won't consider; it is a thing about which no consideration is needed. This money was given to Uncle John to help pay for my keep, and clothes, and education, and by every law of right and justice it belongs to him and to him alone." "I could not touch it, my dear--that is quite out of the question. The idea of being paid for bringing you up! Such money would seem to me like a contamination. "What, then, would it seem like to me?" "But consider, my dear," again urged Miss Brancker, "what a nice little fortune it will make for you if you ever get married." At these words a vivid blush suffused Hermia's cheeks. "If I ever get married it will be to someone who knows my history, or rather, as much of it as any of us knows, and if he would demean himself so far as to accept a farthing of that money--well, if he were to do so I should never care for him again." "It seems such a pity, such a very great pity," murmured Miss Brancker. "John and I have been congratulating ourselves all these years on the nice little nest-egg you would have when you came of age; and now, to think----!" She ended with a sigh. "Dear Aunt Charlotte, cannot you see, cannot you understand, how entirely out of the question it is that I should touch this money?" "It is equally out of the question that John or I should touch it." "In that case, when Mr. Hodgson calls next at the Cottage I will bid him take back his money, and tell him that we will have none of it, and that if he never troubles himself to visit us again none of us will regret his absence. We don't want his money, and we don't want to know his secret. My relatives chose to disown me when I was a helpless child; now that I am grown up, I disown them!"