'This hideous marriage must be prevented; you know why as well as I do. Think of the wreck to which you would bring these innocent lives. Remember, at least, that the girl is your own child, poor thing. Feel pity for her, if you can summon none for the other.'
'I have as much pity for my child as you for yours!' Madam Gillin retorted, with meaning. 'When his neck was in danger, you never stirred a finger-nail.'
My lady stopped at the door to make one more effort.
'You have deliberately brought those two together, though I have strained every nerve to keep them apart. Dare you stand by and see them married?'
'If the childer like each other, faix, it's not me as'll spoil the fun!' returned her tormentor.
My lady groaned and made as if she would speak again, but Mrs. Gillin's fat back was turned; she was improving the position of the cameos, by means of a mirror on the wall.
Lady Glandore adjusted her hood on her white hair, and moved swiftly, with bowed head, away from the Little House; while Madam Gillin, detaching her gorgeous turban, turned quickly round with a grin, so soon as she was fairly gone, and watched her from behind a shutter. The good lady was troubled in her mind, and stood staring down the walk, as the grin faded, long after the muffled figure had departed. At length she clapped the errant comb into its place upon her head, and murmured:
'I'm a devil, not a woman, am I? Sure that cap fits best on your own pate. Rather than speak out, you'd let that lad be whipped off to Fort George, would you? Just as you would have let him be hanged--mother without a heart! It's Lucifer's pride ye have, every ha'porth of it. Well, my lips have been closed long enough.' Then, nodding to the picture over the chimney-piece, she added aloud: 'Have I kept my word with ye? Ye wished it all set right, bad man, when Satan pinched ye. Who was it that was always bidding ye to see to it yourself, and ye wouldn't? And her pride is as great as yours. Never fear; it shall be set right by me; for I like the boy for himself as well as for my oath. Before the sun's set I'll go to Ely Place and tell my Lord Clare something that'll astonish him.'
'Tell him what, mamma?' asked Norah, who was dying to learn what had taken place.
'Never mind, child!' grunted madam, as she squeezed the impudent young lady's peachen cheek. 'What d'ye think that stiff old bag-o'-bones said just now? That I didn't love my girl; and that I'd do her wanton harm.'