‘Upon my word, this is assurance,’ cried Mervyn.
‘Give me my letter,’ repeated Bertha, reaching out for it. ‘No one else has a right to touch it.’
‘If there be nothing amiss,’ said Phœbe, coming to the relief of her brother, who was almost speechless at this audacity, ‘why receive it under cover to a servant?’
‘Because prejudice surrounds me,’ stoutly replied Bertha, with barely a hitch in her speech, as if making a grand stroke; but seeing her brother smile, she added in an annihilating tone, ‘practical tyranny is exercised in every family until education and intellect effect a moral emancipation.’
‘What?’ said Mervyn, ‘education teaching you to write letters in German hand! Fine results! I tell you, if you were older, the disgrace of this would stick to you for life, but if you will tell the whole truth about this scoundrel, and put an end to it, we will do the best we can for you.’
She made up a disdainful mouth, and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘After all,’ said Mervyn, turning to Phœbe, ‘it is a joke! Look at her! She is a baby! You need not have made such a rout. This is only a toy-letter to a little girl; very good practice in German writing.’
‘I am engaged to John Hastings heart and hand,’ said Bertha in high dignity, little knowing that she thus first disclosed the name.
‘Yes, people talk of children being their little wives,’ said Mervyn, ‘but you are getting too old for such nonsense, though he does not think you so.’
‘It is the joint purpose of our lives,’ said Bertha.