CHAPTER XII.
WHEREIN WE SEE BREEDING—HIGH AND LOW.
Mother and daughter parted almost the moment that the former was assured of Sally's readiness to come home, and Sally, nearly half-an-hour late, sped on her errand. It was with a glow on her face and a light in her eye that had been absent for many a day, that she ultimately reappeared in the nursery. Her bright looks seemed to add fuel to the wrath of the upper nurse, who burst out on Sally before she was well in at the door.
"I shan't stand this no longer, miss, depend on't," the soured, elderly maiden wound up. "I'm a decent woman, I ham, and don't mean to be disgraced by the likes o' you, not if I knows it. I've stood a lot too much from you a'ready, shameless gipsy that ye are. Your hongoin's is just past bearin', and I mean to tell Mrs. Morgan this very day as 'ow she must get another nurse an she means to keep you."
Nearly if not quite as much as this had been said to Sarah Wanless before now, and she had borne it silently with a bitter heart, because she found herself alone in the world. But to-day she was bolder from the consciousness within her that she was not yet wholly forsaken. Driven to bay by this woman's tongue, she turned upon her, and with flashing eyes, a voice trembling with passion, cried—
"And I have stood too much from you, Mary Crane. You have behaved to me worse than if I had been a dog, and you're a hard-hearted, selfish woman. What right have you to trample upon me, as if you was a saint and more? You've a black enough mind any way, and mebbe you've done worse nor me before now, for all your spiteful pride and down-looking on a poor, heart-stricken girl, as never did you no harm. Shame on you, Mary Crane, I would not exchange my lot for yours yet, if it was to give me a heart like yours. And you need not trouble Mrs. Morgan with your tales. I've made up my mind to stand your insolence no longer. I'll go to Mrs. Morgan myself and give up my place, and tell her how you've used me."
This unexpected outburst fairly took the nurse's breath away. She stuttered with inarticulate passion, and danced again in the agony of rage. A torrent of abuse was on her tongue, but she only managed to hiss out an opprobrious epithet at the girl, at the sound of which Sally faced her like one transformed. Drawing her form up to its full height, and holding her clenched hands close by her sides, she marched straight at nurse Crane, and fairly stood over her with her face a-flame and lips set, every feature rigid with scorn and wrath. Crane's heart died within her. She cowered and hid her face in her hands.
"Say that word again, Mary Crane," Sally demanded in a low, passion-thrilled voice, but Mary Crane uttered never a sound.