"You're talking nonsense, Hannah. You know nothing about it," cried Lavinia angrily. "Let me manage my own affairs my own way and tell me what mother's doing. You read me a riddle about her just now."
"'Tisn't much of a riddle. It's just what one might guess she'd do when she's on the scent for money. You've become mighty valuable to her all of a sudden."
"I! Valuable? Oh la! That's too funny."
"You think so, do you child? Wait till you hear. I call it a monstrous shame an' downright wicked. A mother sell her own child! It's horrible—horrible."
"What are you talking about, you tiresome Hannah?" cried the girl opening her eyes very wide.
"Ah, you may well ask. After you was locked up she pocketted that letter from your spark and off she went to his lodgings in the Temple. She well plied herself with cordials an' a drop o' gin or two afore she started, an' my name's not Hannah if she didn't repeat the dose as she came back. I knowed it at once by her red face an' her tongue a-wagging nineteen to the dozen. She can't keep her mouth shut when she's like that. It all comed out. She'd been to that Mr. Der—Dor—what's his name?"
"Dorrimore. Yes—yes. Go on. I want to hear," exclaimed Lavinia breathlessly.
"I wouldn't ha' said a word agen her if she'd insisted upon the fine young gentleman paying for his frolic a trying to fool you—which he didn't do an' you may thank yourself for your sperrit Miss Lavvy—that was only what a mother ought to do, but to sell her own child to make money out of her own flesh an' blood—well I up an' told her to her face what I thought of her."
"Make money out of me, good gracious Hannah, how?"
"The fellow offered her fifty guineas if she'd hand you over to him. He swore he'd make a lady of you."