"What do you expect to find in what you are pleased to call my world, Pauline?" he asked, angrily.
"Little truth, and plenty of affectation; little honor, and plenty of polish; little honesty, and very high-sounding words; little sincerity, and plenty of deceit."
"By what right do you sit in judgment?" he demanded.
"None at all," replied Pauline; "but as people are always speaking ill of the dear, honest world in which I have lived, I may surely be permitted to criticise the world that is outside it."
Sir Oswald turned away angrily; and Miss Hastings sighed over the girl's willfulness.
"Why do you talk to Sir Oswald in a fashion that always irritates him?" she remonstrated.
"We live in a free country, and have each of us freedom of speech."
"I am afraid the day will come when you will pay a sad price for yours."
But Pauline Darrell only laughed. Such fears never affected her; she would sooner have expected to see the heavens fall at her feet than that Sir Oswald should not leave Darrell Court to her—his niece, a Darrell, with the Darrell face and the Darrell figure, the true, proud features of the race. He would never dare to do otherwise, she thought, and she would not condescend to change either her thought or speech to please him.
"The Darrells do not know fear," she would say; "there never yet was an example of a Darrell being frightened into anything."