AGNES ELOPES WITH HER AUNT BETSY.
"Is it possible!" cried Agnes, the moment that the door of the carriage was closed upon them, "is it possible that I am really under your protection, and going to your home, aunt Betsy?"
"To my temporary home, dear child, you are certainly going," said the old lady, taking her hand; "but I hope soon to have one more comfortable for you, my Agnes!"
"Where I shall find the bower and the bees? Is it not so, aunt?"
"Not exactly ... at least not at present.... But tell me, Agnes, don't you think I was very gentle and civil to Mrs. Barnaby?"
"It was certainly very wise not to reproach her, poor woman, more directly.... But, oh! dearest aunt Betsy, how well you know her!... If you had studied for a twelvemonth to find out how you might best have tormented her, you could have discovered no method so effectual as the making her first believe that you had a great fortune, and then that her own conduct had robbed her of your favour. Poor aunt Barnaby!... I cannot help pitying her!"
"You are tender-hearted, my dear, ... and a flatterer too.... You give me credit, I assure you, for a vast deal more cleverness than I possess: excepting on the subject of the old clothes which she offered me when we met in the cottage of dame Sims, I attempted no jestings with her.... But tell me, Agnes, have you not suffered dreadfully from the tyranny and vulgar ignorance of this detestable woman? Has she not almost broken your young heart?"
"I have not been very happy with her, aunt Betsy," replied Agnes gently; ... "but she speaks only truth when she says I have lived at her cost, and this ought to close my lips against speaking more against her than may be necessary to clear my own conduct in your eyes."
Perhaps the old lady was a little disappointed at finding that she was to have no good stories concerning the absurdities of the apothecary's high-flying widow, as she called her; but, despite all the oddities of Miss Compton, there was quite enough of the innate feeling of a gentlewoman within her to make her value Agnes the more for her promised forbearance. She threw her arm round her, and pressing her to her bosom, said,—
"Let this feeling of Christian gentleness be extended to me also, Agnes, ... for I have great need of it. This Martha Wisett the second, poor soul, was the first-born of her mother, and seems to have taken as her birth-right all the qualities, bodily and mental, of her vulgar and illiterate dam.... But I have no such excuse, my child, for the obstinate prejudice with which my heart has been filled, and my judgment absolutely confounded. All you have suffered with this woman, Agnes, ought, in truth, to be laid to my charge.... I knew what she was, and yet I suffered you.... Let us try to forget it; and only remember, if you can, that I turned away from you for no other reason upon earth than because I feared you were not ... exactly what I now find you. But here we are at home. How greatly must you want the healing feeling that home should bring! Poor dear!... When have you ever felt it?"