She stopped suddenly, and all the sallow wrinkles of her face burned with a crimson more vivid than exposure in the actual commission of a crime would have kindled there. Her mean spirit cowered beneath the looks of surprise that her son fixed upon her, as this confession of original poverty escaped her lips. "I mean, I mean," she stammered, after biting her lips half through in impatient wrath, "that he should want my advice about such things before he was married." It is a mournful thing when respect becomes a duty impossible to perform. Young Farnham felt this, and again his eyes drooped, while a flush of shame stole over his forehead. "Well, madam," a woman of more sensitive feelings would have noticed that he did not call her mother, "well, madam, whatever cause of dislike may have been in this case, I cannot regret that all power to harm these old people is now at an end. The notes are cancelled, the money paid to your agent from my own pocket." "But you had no right to pay this. You are not yet of age by some months. I will not sanction this extravagance." "Nay, madam, this money is mine, and was saved from the extravagance that you _did_ sanction. I had intended to purchase a gift for Isabel with it, but she will be better pleased as it is." "To Isabel, five hundred dollars to Isabel!" cried the harsh woman. "This is putting a beggar on horseback with a vengeance." "Hush, madam, I will not listen to this; you know, or might have seen long before this, that the young girl your language insults, has refused to become my wife." "Your _wife_! Isabel Chester _your_ wife! A pauper, and the child of a pauper! Say it again, say that again if you dare!" cried the woman in a whirlwind of passion. "Say that the policeman's daughter has refused you!" "When you are calmer, madam, I will repeat it, for no truth can be more fixed, but now it would only exasperate you." "Go on--go on, let me hear it again. It proves the Farnham blood in your veins, always sighing and grovelling after low objects. Go on, sir, I am listening--you intend to make _me_ mother-in-law to a pauper; a miserable thing that I took to keep me company, as I would a poodle-dog, and dressed and petted just in the same way. Marry her! try it, and I'll make a beggar of _you_!" "I do not know that you have the power to make me a beggar, madam, but a slave you never shall make me; as for Isabel," he added, with a scornful smile on his lips, firing up with something of her own ungovernable anger, "she is at least your equal and mine." "_My_ equal, the pauper, the--the--oh--oh!" Insane with bitter passion, the woman stamped her foot fiercely on the floor, and began tearing the delicate lace from her handkerchief with her teeth, laughter and hysterical sobs hissing through them at the same moment. "Madam, restrain yourself," pleaded the young man, greatly shocked, "I have been to blame, I should have told you of this some other time."