"Take you away? A pretty request truly; and give every old maid in Curtain Wells the opportunity of saying I was afraid to show my face and your figure. Take you away, miss? No, indeed, I shall take you around. I shall try by exhibiting you beneath your mother's protection, to give the lie to these atrocious reports and, next year, miss, next year, we will pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells in order to provide a husband whom you may kiss in the privacy of your own estate, with no one but a wandering gamekeeper any the wiser." "I never kissed Mr. Amor," protested Phyllida. "Amor? Amor? And who is Mr. Amor?" "He is my true love, ma'am, whom I love with all my might and main." "There's indecency! there's impropriety! Lud! I vow, vixen, you are as wanton as a goddess. You love him, eh?" "That is my only excuse, ma'am, for having behaved so ill." "What business, I should like to know, has a child of fifteen----" "Seventeen, ma'am." "Fifteen, girl." "Then, sure, you are reckoning by leap years, ma'am." "Do not be impudent. I repeat, Phyllida, I will not have impudence. You know dear Doctor Makewell particularly enjoined me not to allow impudence. 'Your heart won't stand it, ma'am.' Cruel Phyllida, not content with deceiving your mother, you are willing to injure her health by impudence." "You think only of yourself," said Phyllida bitterly. "Only of myself! Oh! Phyllida, how dare you accuse me of selfishness? My whole life since the death of your father who was a most exacting man and would ride Pegasus, though I told him a hundred times if I told him once that the brute would murder him. Now I've forgotten what I was saying, and 'tis all your fault, ungrateful child. Go to bed instantly and to-morrow I will have all your dresses starched as stiff as leather, so that nobody, not even that spiteful Lady Jane Vane, can say I don't take care that whatever your mind may be, your dresses leave nothing to be desired. Go to bed, go to bed. I can't listen to you any longer. I feel humiliated by your abominable behaviour. Judge of my feelings when I tell you I did not dare invite either Mr. Moon or Major Tarry to escort me home for fear the world would say I was setting you a bad example. Now, perhaps you'll accuse me of not possessing a conscience. Indeed, my conscience is too tender. 'Tis the tenderest part of me, though I have one of the most delicate skins--a skin that bruises if I ring a bell with unwonted celerity." "Mamma, I----" Phyllida began. "Pray do not say another word, you have said enough to-night to last a lifetime. Send Betty with my bedgown worked in crimson hollyhocks and I will try to forget this wretched experience by attempting to ascertain--please get the playing cards--how Miss Trumper managed to secure codille in the last hand but four of this extremely unpleasant and unprofitable evening. Go to bed, Phyllida, don't dally. Here is Betty. Go to bed, Phyllida."