Before he could recover from his surprise, she had snatched away her hand to run, frightened and sobbing, to her own room, where she threw herself upon her knees, to weep and bewail her wickedness, for she was beginning to feel that there was some truth in her cousin’s words, and that she had committed a sin, for whose enormity there could be no pardon.
“What is to become of me?” she wailed in her misery, as she went to her dressing-table, and started back in affright at her hot, flushed face. “Oh, is it true that I have behaved as he says, and can Mr Selwood have seen my boldness?”
She sank into a chair to cover her face with her hands, but only to start and utter a faint cry as she felt them drawn away, and saw that Mrs Glaire was looking eagerly down upon her flushed and fevered cheeks.
Volume Three—Chapter Two.
Sim Slee’s Brotherhood.
Many of Richard Glaire’s workmen belonged to one of the regular trades’ unions, from which they received counsel and assistance, and these men held Sim Slee’s movements in the most utter contempt. For his part, the above-named worthy returned the contempt, looking down upon trades’ unions as not being of sufficiently advanced notions for him, and praising up his own brotherhood to all who were weak enough to listen.
The brotherhood, as he called it, was entirely his own invention, as far as Dumford was concerned; but it was really based upon an absurd institution that had place in London, and maintained a weak and sickly growth, being wanting in all the good qualities of the regular unions, and embracing every one of their faults.
But it pleased Sim Slee, who went upon the motto Aut Caesar aut nullus. In his own brotherhood he was chief, chairman, father, or patriarch. In the regular trades’ union he would have been only Sim Slee, an individual largely held in contempt.