“Does that offend you?” she asked, as Lady Linton shrank again, as if from a blow, at these words. “It is to be regretted, but it is a fact which nothing can change, and she will one day claim her own, even though her mother is no longer the wife of her father, and I trust that she will then do honor to the name and position which she will assume. You may rest assured that I shall attend most faithfully to her education, for it has been, and still shall be, my chief object in life to make her worthy in every way to be received as a representative of the ‘ancient and honored house of Heath.’ Pardon me if I seem ironical,” Virgie interposed, a slight smile flitting over her lips as she quoted this sentence, which had been burned into her brain so long ago; “but I cannot forget the cruel things which you wrote to your friend, Mrs. Farnum, ten years ago. Do you blame me for refusing to clasp, in pretended friendship, the hand that penned them? or for shrinking from the kisses of one who so scorned and mocked me; who offered me money, as if my honor was a thing to be bought, my wretchedness and despair something to be alleviated with gold? You wrote of me is ‘that person’—‘that girl,’ as if I belonged to a lower order of humanity; but, madam, my grandmother was an English woman like yourself, and perchance—though I assume nothing of the kind—there is as good blood in my veins as in your own. But,” with a weary sigh, “perhaps I am wrong to recriminate thus. I had no intention of saying aught like this when I came to you. I am afraid I have been inconsiderate of your weakness, but my words have come unbidden. I wish you no ill. I think I have proved that during the past week. I wish your brother no ill, if he is happy in his present relation; far be it from me to wish him to suffer as I have suffered, although he has done me the greatest wrong it is possible for a man to do a woman. It is a strange freak of fate, Lady Linton, this meeting between you and me, and yet I believe I do not regret that we have seen and known each other; it has served to show you what the woman, whom your brother wooed and won, is like; that although she may not have belonged to the titled aristocracy of a kingdom, she was at least a true-hearted daughter of a grand republic, and in no way his inferior in character or intellect. We may never meet again, and we may; I cannot tell; but some day the wrong that has been done me will be righted through the justice which must and shall be rendered to my daughter.” As she ceased Virgie bowed gravely and then turned and quietly left the room, leaving Lady Linton more astonished and browbeaten—though it had been done in the most courteous and dignified way imaginable—than she had ever been before. For several minutes she sat staring, in a dazed way, at the door which had been so softly shut upon that graceful, retreating form, and almost feeling as if the whole interview must have been some hallucination of the brain.