"Nothing shall separate me from my child," said Mrs. Trevelyan eagerly.
"That is easily said; but I suppose the power of doing as he pleased would be with him."
"Why should it be with him? I do not at all know that it would be with him. I have not left his house. It is he that has turned me out."
"There can, I think, be very little doubt what you should do," said Priscilla, after a pause, during which she had got up from her seat under the thorn bush.
"What should I do?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan.
"Go back to him."
"I will to-morrow if he will write and ask me. Nay; how could I help myself? I am his creature, and must go or come as he bids me. I am here only because he has sent me."
"You should write and ask him to take you."
"Ask him to forgive me because he has ill-treated me?"
"Never mind about that," said Priscilla, standing over her companion, who was still lying under the bush. "All that is twopenny-halfpenny pride, which should be thrown to the winds. The more right you have been hitherto the better you can afford to go on being right. What is it that we all live upon but self-esteem? When we want praise it is only because praise enables us to think well of ourselves. Every one to himself is the centre and pivot of all the world."