Mary shivered but did not speak. It was her cold hanging about her still her mother thought, but Lord Frogmore was not quite of that opinion. “They must have said something very nasty to take such a hold upon you. What was it? Come now, Mary. You will not make me think worse of them (which is what you are afraid of) by anything you can tell me, and it will be a relief to you to get it out.” “It was--nothing particular,” Mary said; but again a shudder ran through her. “It was just, I suppose, what people say when they are very angry.” “Come, Mary. What did she say?” “Oh, Frogmore,” cried Mary at last, “she could not mean it. You know she could not mean it. Poor Letitia! she is a mother, and they say a mother will do any thing I am sure she had no ill meaning. She said she hoped I would be cursed, that if I had a----oh, I can’t, I can’t repeat what she said. That she wished I were dead, or would go mad, or---- No, no, she could not mean it. People don’t curse you nowadays. It is too dreadful,” Mary cried, and she shivered more and more, wrapping herself up in her shawl. “The devil,” cried Lord Frogmore. “The little fierce devil!--a mother. She is no more a mother than a tigress is. She hates you because after all her ill-treatment of you you will have the upper hand of her. And I hope you will take it and make her feel it too. What a woman for my poor brother John to have brought into the family! I can forgive his mother, who is as stupid as a figurehead, but would cut herself or anyone else in little pieces if she thought it would be good for John; but not John’s wife, the odious little shrew--the----” “Oh, Frogmore,” cried Mary, “don’t speak of her so. I can never forget how kind she was to me.” “Kind to you--accepting all your time and care and affections and downright hard work, and giving you how much for them?--nothing. Now, Mary, there must be an end of this. She has made a slave of you for years. I hope you don’t mean to let her make a victim of you at the end.” “Oh--she could not mean it. I don’t think she could mean it; but to curse me--just when everyone, even the old women in the almshouses, send their blessing.” Mary fell into a fit of shivering again, vainly wrapping herself in the shawl to restore warmth, and keeping with difficulty her teeth from chattering. The old lord was much disturbed by this sight. He tried to caress and soothe her into composure, but elicited little save a weeping apology. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Frogmore.” “Mary,” he said at length, “I suppose we’ve both agreed as to the source from which blessings and curses come--or rather, let us say good fortune and bad, for I don’t like to credit God with the curses, for my part.” Mary, a little startled, looked at him with wide, open eyes, the tears, for the moment at least, arrested. She was not sure whether he was not about to say something profane, and as a clergyman’s daughter she felt it her duty to be on her guard.