"Thank God!... then all our troubles are at an end!... Dear, blessed, sister Betsy!... ten pounds, ten pounds will be quite enough for us all, and buy a pair of new black stockings for Josiah into the bargain, in case he should like to go."
Miss Betsy made no reply, but drawing the table a little towards her, opened her book, and began to read.
"It's a long walk I have to go, sister," resumed Mrs. Compton, "and I shall be particularly glad to get home; ... so, will you have the kindness to give me the money at once?"
"Ma'am?..." said Miss Betsy, looking up with a most innocent expression of countenance.
"Whatever sum you may be pleased to grant us, sister Betsy, I beg and entreat you to give me directly."
"So I would, Mrs. Compton, without a moment's delay," replied Miss Betsy, with the most cheerful good-humour, "only I don't intend to give you any money at all."
"Oh! isn't that treachery?... isn't that cruelty?" exclaimed the agitated matron, wringing her hands. "Did not you say, sister Betsy, that it would be the most natural and right thing in the world to ask one's rich relations in such a moment as this?"
"But I never said it would be right to ask me, Mrs. Compton."
"But you meant it, if you did not say it, and that I'm sure you can't deny, ... and isn't it hard-hearted to disappoint me now?"
"It is a great deal more hard-hearted in you, Mrs. Compton, to take upon you to say that I am rich. I am a poor crooked ram's-horn of a body, as you know well enough, and I want the comfort and the consolation of all the little countrified indulgences that my good father provided for me by his will. You were a beauty, Mrs. Compton, and your daughters are beauties, and it must be a great blessing to be a beauty; but when God denied me this, he gave me a kind-hearted father, who took care that if I could not have lovers, I should have wherewithal to do tolerably well without them; and I am not going to fly in the face of Providence, or of my father either, in order to dress you and your daughters up to please the officers. So now, Mrs. Compton, I think you had better go home again."