“I don’t cherish them, my lady. But I succeed in avoiding hate better than suppressing contempt, which perhaps is the worse of the two. There may be some respect in hate.” Here he paused, for here was a chance that was not likely to recur. He might say before two ladies what he could not say before one. If he could but rouse Florimel’s indignation! Then at any suitable time only a word more would be needful to direct it upon the villain. Clementina’s eyes continued fixed upon him. At length he spoke. “I will try to make two pictures in your mind, my lady, if you will help me to paint them. In _my_ mind they are not _painted_ pictures. --A long sea-coast, my lady, and a stormy night;--the sea-horses rushing in from the north-east, and the snow-flakes beginning to fall. On the margin of the sea a long dune or sand-bank, and on the top of it, her head bare, and her thin cotton dress nearly torn from her by the wind, a young woman, worn and white, with an old faded tartan shawl tight about her shoulders, and the shape of a baby inside it, upon her arm.” “Oh! she doesn’t mind the cold,” said Florimel. “When I was there, I didn’t mind it a bit.” “She does not mind the cold,” answered Malcolm; “she is far too miserable for that.” “But she has no business to take the baby out on such a night,” continued Florimel, carelessly critical. “You ought to have painted her by the fireside. They have all of them firesides to sit at. I have seen them through the windows many a time.” “Shame or cruelty had driven her from it,” said Malcolm, “and there she was.” “Do you mean you saw her yourself wandering about?” asked Clementina. “Twenty times, my lady.” Clementina was silent. “Well, what comes next?” said Florimel. “Next comes a young gentleman;--but this is a picture in another frame, although of the same night;--a young gentleman in evening dress, sipping his madeira, warm and comfortable, in the bland temper that should follow the best of dinners, his face beaming with satisfaction after some boast concerning himself, or with silent success in the concoction of one or two compliments to have at hand when he joins the ladies in the drawing-room.” “Nobody can help such differences,” said Florimel. “If there were nobody rich, who would there be to do anything for the poor? It’s not the young gentleman’s fault that he is better born and has more money than the poor girl.” “No,” said Malcolm; “but what if the poor girl has the young gentleman’s child to carry about from morning to night.” “Oh, well! I suppose she’s paid for it,” said Florimel, whose innocence must surely have been supplemented by some stupidity, born of her flippancy. “Do be quiet, Florimel,” said Clementina. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”