Mrs. Trevor stamped one foot angrily. She seemed to be almost beside herself with grief and wrathful suspicion. Hermione grew pale.
"I have done nothing to Mittie. You are wrong and cruel to accuse me. She wanted flowers from the conservatory, and I was too busy to see to it. She said she would go out. Nothing more passed."
"Nothing more than an ordinary snubbing, I suppose. Poor pet! she wasn't used to snubbings before she came here. It was left to a saintly being like yourself to teach her what that sort of thing means."
"You are hard upon me—for what I cannot possibly help," Hermione said with difficulty.
"You could have helped it! Common attention to the child was all that was needed. Hard upon you! As if this were the only time! As if it had not been going on ever since we came to Westford! Oh, you count yourself an immaculate being, I know, but I can tell you other people don't hold the same opinion. You may be an angel among the cottagers, but you're not at all an angel in your own home. Talk of religion! I'm sick of the word. You just care to please yourself, and that's all. Your religion is to do what you like! It's selfishness out and out! You haven't even the bare kindness to look after a poor forlorn child left in your charge. Oh, you were too busy, of course—about your own concerns—and my poor Mittie just had to take her chance. All I can say is, that if ever I want religion, I'll not come to you for it. I'll go to somebody who acts instead of talking. I don't believe in such saintliness as yours. It's all a sham and a delusion,—nothing but show! There! I've told you plainly, for once, what I think. I don't care whether you like it or not."
Mrs. Trevor hurried away, and Hermione stood as if stunned, white to the lips, shuddering all over with long shivers as if of bodily pain.
For the arrow had struck home.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
BELEAGUERED.
MITTIE did not mean to be half-an-hour absent when she started on her little excursion.