"No—I won't."
"Or to the jewellers?"
"No; I won't. I mean to—keep them—for—my child." Then there came forth a sob, and a tear, and Lizzie's handkerchief was held to her eyes.
"Your child! Wouldn't they be kept properly for him, and for the family, if the jewellers had them? I don't believe you care about your child."
"Aunt Penelope, you had better take care."
"I shall say just what I think, Lizzie. You can't frighten me. The fact is, you are disgracing the family you have married into, and as you are my niece—"
"I'm not disgracing anybody. You are disgracing everybody."
"As you are my niece, I have undertaken to come to you and to tell you that if you don't give 'em up within a week from this time, they'll proceed against you for—stealing 'em!" Lady Linlithgow, as she uttered this terrible threat, bobbed her head at her niece in a manner calculated to add very much to the force of her words. The words, and tone, and gesture combined were, in truth, awful.
"I didn't steal them. My husband gave them to me with his own hands."
"You wouldn't answer Mr. Camperdown's letters, you know. That alone will condemn you. After that there isn't a word to be said about it;—not a word. Mr. Camperdown is the family lawyer, and when he writes to you letter after letter you take no more notice of him than a—dog!" The old woman was certainly very powerful. The way in which she pronounced that last word did make Lady Eustace ashamed of herself. "Why didn't you answer his letters, unless you knew you were in the wrong? Of course you knew you were in the wrong."