“You remember what I told you I had been, and where I came from, ragged and lame, with the fierce wind and weather beating on my head?”
“Yes.”
“You know how I came back that night, and threw your money in the dirt, and you and your race. Now, see me here, upon my knees. Am I less earnest now, than I was then?”
“If what you ask,” said Harriet, gently, “is forgiveness—”
“But it’s not!” returned the other, with a proud, fierce look “What I ask is to be believed. Now you shall judge if I am worthy of belief, both as I was, and as I am.”
Still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress of which she pulled over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she went on:
“When I was young and pretty, and this,” plucking contemptuously at the hair she held, “was only handled delicately, and couldn’t be admired enough, my mother, who had not been very mindful of me as a child, found out my merits, and was fond of me, and proud of me. She was covetous and poor, and thought to make a sort of property of me. No great lady ever thought that of a daughter yet, I’m sure, or acted as if she did—it’s never done, we all know—and that shows that the only instances of mothers bringing up their daughters wrong, and evil coming of it, are among such miserable folks as us.”
Looking at the fire, as if she were forgetful, for the moment, of having any auditor, she continued in a dreamy way, as she wound the long tress of hair tight round and round her hand.
“What came of that, I needn’t say. Wretched marriages don’t come of such things, in our degree; only wretchedness and ruin. Wretchedness and ruin came on me—came on me.”
Raising her eyes swiftly from their moody gaze upon the fire, to Harriet’s face, she said: