"What has she the effrontery to take my name?"
Mrs. Menteith stared at her with utter amazement. "Your name?" said she. "'Tis a simple country body, and her name is Vint—Mercy Vint."
Mrs. Gaunt was very much agitated, and said she felt quite unequal to see a stranger.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Menteith. "She says she will lie at your door all night, but she will see you. 'Tis the face of a friend. She may know something. It seems hard to thrust her and her child out into the street, after their coming all the way from Lancashire."
Mrs. Gaunt stood silent awhile, and her intelligence had a severe combat with her deep repugnance to be in the same room with Griffith Gaunt's mistress (so she considered her). But a certain curiosity came to the aid of her good sense; and after all she was a brave and haughty woman, and her natural courage began to rise. She thought to herself, "What, dare she come to me all this way, and shall I shrink from her?"
She turned to Mrs. Menteith with a bitter smile, and she said, very slowly, and clenching her white teeth, "Since you desire it, and she insists on it, I will receive Mistress Mercy Vint."
Mrs. Menteith went off, and in about five minutes returned ushering in Mercy Vint in a hood and travelling-cloak.
Mrs. Gaunt received her standing, and with a very formal curtsy, to which Mercy made a quiet obeisance, and both women looked one another all over in a moment.
Mrs. Menteith lingered, to know what on earth this was all about; but, as neither spoke a word, and their eyes were fixed on each other, she divined that her absence was necessary, and so retired, slowly, looking very much amazed at both of them.