"They say that Miss Courteen's necklace vastly becomes her mother."
"Do they, indeed, sir?" said the widow with an affected sigh.
Charles made an impatient gesture.
"Do you imagine, madam, that I am going to tire a good-hearted horse for the sake of allowing you to bask in the flattery of your friends? By G——! I tell you that one of 'em is already dead—shot for the sake of that daughter whose ruin you contemplate so tranquilly."
The widow turned pale.
"At any rate," Charles continued; "at any rate, the little Major with all his strut died like a cock of the game."
"The Major dead," half screamed the widow; and even that information, so brutally delivered, provided the thought that now more than ever was it necessary to prevent Phyllida's marriage.
"Aye, dead! He'll be here in the morning when the Wells waggon arrives."
Charles turned away from the widow, thinking how impossible it was to believe that a mother could be so heartless. The desire to cherish Phyllida surged over him in a wave of tenderness; but when presently he and Clare set out from the inn-door, under the tail of the storm-cloud shedding stars in slow retreat across the sky, he felt Despair upon his heels and pondered the infamy of this beautiful world. Poor hero! he was a gamester even in his emotions and, having staked his hope in one wild throw, was fearfully watching the issue. What a maddening melody the cubes made when rattled by the hands of Fate.
Pray remember, before you dismiss the widow to your eternal disdain, that she may have loved young Mr. Standish, that rugged Squire Courteen may have been very brutal in his cups, that such a malicious Codicil might have soured a woman less dependent upon the amenity of life. Finally, pray remember that she was a woman who did not wrinkle easily, and the consequent temptations of a deceitful mirrour. Looking-glasses, like human beings, lie more often than is commonly supposed, but possess an unlucky reputation for truthfulness which seldom hampers humanity.