The girl makes a shocked gesture. ‘It is your daughter, then? But’—quickly—‘now you know he doesn’t love me, and you can tell her—and——’ She is looking eagerly, with almost passionate hope, at Mrs. Prior. ‘Tell her! Tell my daughter about you!’ Mrs. Prior’s voice is terrible. ‘How dare you suggest the idea of my speaking to my girl of——’ She checks herself with difficulty, and goes on coldly: ‘No doubt you believe Mr. Wyndham will be to you always as he is now. Women of your class delude themselves like that. But—when he marries—as he will—as he shall—you will learn that a wife is one thing and a mis——’ She breaks off in the middle of her odious word as though shot. A hand has grasped her shoulder. ‘Hould yer tongue, woman, if there’s still a dhrop o’ dacency left in ye! Hould yer tongue, I say!’ The voice is the voice of Mrs. Denis. ‘May I ask who it is you are addressing?’ asks Mrs. Prior, releasing herself easily enough. Putting up her eyeglass, she bends upon Mrs. Denis the glare that she has always found so effectual for the undoing of her foes. But Mrs. Denis thinks nothing of glares. She is, indeed, at this moment producing one of her own, beneath which Mrs. Prior’s sinks into insignificance. ‘Faith ye may!’ says she, advancing towards the enemy with a regular ‘come on’ sort of air. ‘An’ as ye ask me, I’ll give ye yer answer. Ye’re the aunt of a nevvy that has ivery right to be ashamed o’ ye! Know ye, is it? Arrah!’ Here the unapproachable sarcasm of the Irish peasant breaks forth. ‘Is it that ye’re askin’? Fegs, I do, thin, an’ to me cost, for ’tis too late I am wid me knowledge.’ She pauses here, and planting her hands on her ample hips, surveys Mrs. Prior with deliberate scorn. ‘Oh, ye ould thraitor!’ says she at last. Tableau! It is open to question whether Mrs. Prior’s instant anger arises most from the word ‘ould’ or ‘thraitor.’ Probably the ‘ould.’ ‘You forget yourself!’ cries she sharply, furiously. ‘Ye’re out there,’ says Mrs. Denis; ‘for ’tis I’m remimberin’. “Oh, Mrs. Denis”’—with a wonderful attempt at Mrs. Prior’s air—‘“an’ is that you?”—so swate like. An’, “I’ll be tellin’ me nevvy what a good guardian ye are.” An’, “’Tis me nevvy tould me to come an’ pay me respecks to your young lady.”’ Here Mrs. Denis lifts her powerful fist and shakes it in the air. ‘I wondher to the divil,’ says she, ‘that yer tongue didn’t sthick to yer mouth whin ye said thim words. Yer nevvy indeed! Wait till I see yer nevvy! ’Tis shakin’ in yer shoes ye’ll be thin! Worse than ye made this poor lamb’—with a glance at Ella, who has drawn back and is trembling violently—‘shake to-day.’ ‘You shall have reason to remember this—this most insolent behaviour. You shall know——’ begins Mrs. Prior, white with wrath; but Mrs. Denis will have none of her.