Rosamond’s rage mounted.
“Oh, yes! Roseborough knew that one day my bran-fed morals would fail, and—and—I’d go to the devil in my own common, Milky Way. Moo-o! Moo-o! That’s all I care for Roseborough. It can’t cow me.”
“Oh—Mrs. Mearely!”
It was one thing to have a sly admiration for Hibbert Mearely’s widow’s brave and farm-like improprieties—not to use a harsher word—but one could only be affronted when she forgot that she had left farm manners behind her, and put her arms akimbo!
It seemed that Mrs. Mearely had still a great deal to say, with clear, raised voice and hands on her hips.
“I’d rather be descended from good, sweet butter—than—than—be the silly, braying donkeys you’ll all be to-morrow. I must say I’m surprised at you, Miss Crewe—who have had the advantages of high birth, denied to me, not to mention the wonderful opportunity of moral training under Mrs. Witherby—that you should come here and expose your tender feelings for a gentleman, who proposed to me this very evening—before all this happened. Where’s your ancestral pride? Before it happened, he proposed to me.”
“He told me he was going to,” Mabel answered quietly. She sank into the big chair and leaned her face against the cushioned back. Rosamond stared at her speechlessly.
“He told you?” she repeated, presently.
“Yes. He said we must give up our hopes—and marry money.”
“I—I was—Money?” she gasped.