"Repentant!" said Aunt Maria in a scornful tone. "Don't tell me. I know their tricks, and you'll just be imposed on and get yourself into trouble. I know the world, and I know all about it." Eva now rose and played her last card. "Aunt Maria," she said, "You profess to be a Christian and to follow the Saviour who came to seek and save the lost, and I don't think you do right to treat with such scorn a poor girl that is trying to do better."
"It's pretty well of you, Miss, to lecture me in this style! Trying to do better!" said Aunt Maria, "then what did she go off for, when she was at your house and you were doing all you could for her? It was just that she wanted to go to the bad."
"She went off, Aunt Maria," said Eva, "because she overheard all you said about her, the day you were at my house. She heard you advising me to send her mother away on her account, and saying that she was a disgrace to me. No wonder she ran off."
"Well, serves her right for listening! Listeners never hear any good of themselves," said Aunt Maria.
"Now, Aunty," said Eva, "nobody has more respect for your good qualities than I have, or more sense of what we all owe you for your kindness to us; but I must tell you fairly that, now I am married, you must not come to my house to dictate about or interfere with my family arrangements. You must understand that Harry and I manage these matters ourselves and will not allow any interference; and I tell you now that Maggie is to be at our house, and under my care, and I request that you will not come there to say or do anything which may hurt her mother's feelings or hers."
"Mighty fine," said Aunt Maria, rising in wrath, "when it has come to this, that servants are preferred before me!"
"It has not come to that, Aunt Maria. It has simply come to this: that I am to be sole mistress in my own family, and sole judge of what it is right and proper to do; and when I need your advice I shall ask it; but I don't want you to offer it unless I do."
Having made this concluding speech while she was putting on her bonnet and shawl, Eva now cheerfully wished her aunt good afternoon, and made the best of her way down-stairs.
"I don't see, Eva, how you could get up the courage to face your aunt down in that way," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, to whom Eva related the interview.
"Dear Mamma, it'll do her good. She will be as sweet as a rose after the first week of indignation. Aunt Maria is a sensible woman, after all, and resigns herself to the inevitable. She worries and hectors you, my precious Mammy, because you will let her. If you'd show a brave face, she wouldn't do it; but it isn't in you, you poor, lovely darling, and so she just preys upon you; but Harry and I are resolved to make her stand and give the countersign when she comes to our camp."