Here the old wretch burst into tears,--not an assumed grief--no crocodile weeping,--but a flood of genuine tears, wrung from her by the cutting, biting, bitter sarcasms which her daughter had so mercilessly--so slaughterously levelled against her. Perdita suffered her to weep without offering the least consolation: for the young woman was hurt and wounded on her side as well as the old harridan was hurt and wounded on the other. The recriminations of those two females--that mother and daughter--had been terrible in their implacability, and appalling in their unnatural malignity. There was a long pause--during which Mrs. Fitzhardinge sate sobbing--being absolutely hideous in her grief,--while Perdita--with flashing eyes dilating nostrils, flushing cheeks, and palpitating bosom, lay half reclined upon the sofa--tapping the carpet petulantly with the tip of her long, narrow, exquisitely shaped shoe. “My dear child,” at length said the old woman, “are we to be friends or enemies?” “That depends entirely upon yourself, mother,” was the answer: “I am not to be tyrannised over by you--nor menaced in the fearful way in which you have threatened me to-day, without showing resentment in return. Really, one would have supposed that you were addressing yourself to the bitterest enemy you had in the world--rather than to your daughter who has done all she could to place you in a comfortable position for the remainder of your days.” “Well--well--let us be friends, Perdita!” exclaimed Mrs. Fitzhardinge. “Yes--we will be friends,” responded the daughter. “But remember that my views in respect to Charles Hatfield--or rather, Viscount Marston--are to be carried into effect.” “Without again quarrelling,” interrupted her mother, “let me assure you that I cannot--cannot possibly consent to this deviation from our original arrangements. It was an express understanding between us that _marriage_ was, in every case, to be out of the question----” “And may not circumstances transpire to change original plans?” demanded Perdita, beginning to divine the reasons of her mother’s uncompromising opposition to her matrimonial scheme. “A truce to these arguments!” cried Mrs. Fitzhardinge, again growing irritable. “Remember that this evening your love-sick swain will deposit in my hands all the papers containing the evidence of his father’s right to the earldom and estates of Ellingham----” “And you will use your power to coerce me?” said Perdita, in her quiet way, which nevertheless seemed to breathe defiance. “I do not affirm _that_, my child,” cried the old woman, smothering her rage. “But I would ask you of what use those papers would be without my assistance to raise money on them?”