"No! If the women were like you, there’d mighty soon be no more women--nor men neither--a poor, unfinished thing--like a frost-bitten carrot--good for nought. You to talk to me out of your empty life! You to say I’m not fit company for people--me as be bringing brave boys and girls into the world, while you look after puppies and lambs! Why, damn you, you be no more than a useless lump of flesh, as might so well be underground as here! You--out of your empty, silly life--to talk to me in my full, busy days! I spit at you; and if you think to punish me, then I’ll punish you too. I can bite so well as bark; and if you ban’t on your knees pretty soon, I’ll have you and David by the ears--then we’ll see what becomes of you!" Mrs. Screech suggested a woman suffering under too much alcohol. But she was merely drunk with anger. Her sister’s calm attitude and patient indifference to this attack did not help to soothe her. Rhoda looked at the sun, and Dorcas knew that she was judging the time of day. "You’ll call for the hours to move a bit faster afore long," she said. "Don’t you think you can insult me and my husband, year ’pon year like this, and not smart for it. We know very well how to hit back, and if it hadn’t been for a better woman than you, I’d have done it a long time ago. I don’t forget how you boxed my ears once, because I knowed how to love a man. You’d have better axed me what the secret was and begged to know it. But you think you’ve got no use for a man; and they’ve got no use for you and never will have--as you’ll live to find out. And I’ll sting you to the quick now--now--this instant moment, if you don’t say you’m sorry for the past and promise on your honour to treat me and mine decent in future. I warn you to mind afore you speak." A malignant light shone over the face of Dorcas. She set her teeth and panted at her own great wrongs, while she waited for the other to speak. "You can’t hurt me," said Rhoda, "and you know it." "Can’t I? We’ll see then! God defend the world from white virgins like you--that’s what I say. A holy terror you are; and we’re all to be brought up for judgment, I suppose--to have our heads chopped off, because we dare to be made of flesh and blood instead of dead earth. Pure and clean--is it? What _you_ call pure. All the same, the likes of you does things, and thinks things, us married women would blush to do and think." "If that’s all you want to say, I’ll thank you to get out of my road," answered the other.