"Matilda, I'm surprised at you," said her mother. "To forget such a thing as that would be unpardonable in any young man. Leander Tweddle, you cannot have forgotten it."
"No," he said, "I've not forgotten it; but—but I haven't it about me, and I don't know as I could lay my hand on it, just at present, and that's the truth."
"Part of the truth," said Bella. "Oh, what deceitful things you men are! Leave me alone, James; I will speak. I won't sit by and hear poor dear Miss Collum deceived in this way. Miss Collum, ask him if that is all he knows about it. Ask him, and see what he says."
"I'm quite satisfied with what he has chosen to say already, Miss Parkinson; thank you," said Matilda.
"Then permit me to say, Miss Collum, that I'm truly sorry for you," said Bella.
"If you think so, Miss Parkinson, I suppose you must say so."
"I do say it," said Bella; "for it's a sorrowful sight to see meekness all run to poorness of spirit. You have a right to an explanation from Mr. Tweddle there; and you would insist on it, if you wasn't afraid (and with good reason) of the answer you'd get!"
At the beginning of this short colloquy Miss Tweddle, after growing very red and restless for some moments, had slipped out of the room, and came in now, trembling and out of breath, with a bonnet in her hand and a cloak over her arm.
"Miss Parkinson," she said, speaking very rapidly, "when I asked you to come here with my good friend and former lodger, I little thought that anything but friendship would come of it; and sorry I am that it has turned out otherwise. And my feelings to Mr. Jauncy are the same as ever; but—this is your bonnet, Miss Parkinson, and your cloak. And this is my house; and I shall be obliged if you'll kindly put on the ones, and walk out of the other at once!"
Bella burst into tears, and demanded from Mr. Jauncy why he had brought her there to be insulted.