“That’s as false a word as ever you spoke, Mr Glegg,” said the lady, pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness, as much as to say, if he wanted milk he should have it with a vengeance. “And you know it’s false. I’m not the woman to quarrel with my own kin; _you_ may, for I’ve known you to do it.” “Why, what did you call it yesterday, then, leaving your sister’s house in a tantrum?” “I’d no quarrel wi’ my sister, Mr Glegg, and it’s false to say it. Mr Tulliver’s none o’ my blood, and it was him quarrelled with me, and drove me out o’ the house. But perhaps you’d have had me stay and be swore at, Mr Glegg; perhaps you was vexed not to hear more abuse and foul language poured out upo’ your own wife. But, let me tell you, it’s _your_ disgrace.” “Did ever anybody hear the like i’ this parish?” said Mr Glegg, getting hot. “A woman, with everything provided for her, and allowed to keep her own money the same as if it was settled on her, and with a gig new stuffed and lined at no end o’ expense, and provided for when I die beyond anything she could expect—to go on i’ this way, biting and snapping like a mad dog! It’s beyond everything, as God A ’mighty should ha’ made women _so_.” (These last words were uttered in a tone of sorrowful agitation. Mr Glegg pushed his tea from him, and tapped the table with both his hands.) “Well, Mr Glegg, if those are your feelings, it’s best they should be known,” said Mrs Glegg, taking off her napkin, and folding it in an excited manner. “But if you talk o’ my being provided for beyond what I could expect, I beg leave to tell you as I’d a right to expect a many things as I don’t find. And as to my being like a mad dog, it’s well if you’re not cried shame on by the county for your treatment of me, for it’s what I can’t bear, and I won’t bear——” Here Mrs Glegg’s voice intimated that she was going to cry, and breaking off from speech, she rang the bell violently. “Sally,” she said, rising from her chair, and speaking in rather a choked voice, “light a fire up-stairs, and put the blinds down. Mr Glegg, you’ll please to order what you’d like for dinner. I shall have gruel.” Mrs Glegg walked across the room to the small book-case, and took down Baxter’s “Saints’ Everlasting Rest,” which she carried with her up-stairs. It was the book she was accustomed to lay open before her on special occasions,—on wet Sunday mornings, or when she heard of a death in the family, or when, as in this case, her quarrel with Mr Glegg had been set an octave higher than usual.