Elizabeth looked tearful, but she did not resent his dictum;—David's lack of sympathy had been very dampening to romance. It was just at the end that the gunpowder flared.
"Now, remember, I don't want you to be foolish Elizabeth."
"I don't think being in love is foolish, Uncle."
"Love! What do you know about love? You are nothing but a silly little girl."
"I don't think I'm very little; and Blair is in love with me."
"Blair is as young and as foolish as you are. Even if you were older, I wouldn't allow it. He is selfish and irresponsible, and—"
"I think," interrupted Elizabeth, "that you are very mean to abuse Blair behind his back. It isn't fair." Her uncle was perfectly dumfounded; then he went into harsh reproof. Elizabeth grew whiter and whiter and the dimple in her cheek lengthened into a long, hairline. "I wish I didn't live with you. I wish my mother were alive. She would be good to me!"
"Your mother?" said Robert Ferguson; his involuntary grunt of cynical amusement touched the child like a whip. Her fury was appalling. She screamed at him that she hated him! She loved her mother! She was going to marry Blair the minute she was grown up! Then she whirled out of the room, almost knocking over poor old Miss White, whose "post" had been anxiously near the key-hole.
Up-stairs, her rage scared her governess nearly to death: "My lamb! You'll get overheated, and take cold. When I was a young lady, it was thought unrefined to speak so—emphatically. And your dear uncle didn't mean to be severe; he—"
'"Dear uncle'?" said Elizabeth, "dear devil! He hurt my feelings. He made fun of my mother!" As she spoke, she leaped at a photograph of Robert Ferguson which stood on her bureau, and, doubling her hand, struck the thin glass with all her force. It splintered, and the blood spurted from her cut knuckles on to her uncle's face.