“I know,” answered Miss Lawson, “and I would have all the world do you justice. You are now great; let them know you as you are, and crush their calumny. I do not blame the Brights—their whole life was centered in Robert—but——”
“And for the rest I do not care,” interrupted Margery, proudly. “The Brights will hear from Robert soon, and then they will learn the truth and know how they have wronged me. What had I done to the village that at the very beginning of my life they should think ill of me? Oh, Miss Lawson, is the world all like this?”
“The world is cruel, Margery, bitter, hard,” the elder woman said, with a sigh; then she added, regretfully, “I am sorry you will not disclose your secret, but you know best, dear, and I have done what I considered my duty.”
“You have done as you have done so often—treated me as though I were your own child—and I thank you.”
“And have you not been my own?” said the elder woman, with a new light of tenderness on her face. “I have seen you spring up from a tiny child to womanhood; I have loved you through all, and I am proud of you. You are to me what the poet says:
“‘For years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower
On earth was never seen;
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make