“I canʼt establish anything, though I know it, Uncle Cradock.”
“Know it indeed, you poor wild nautch–girl! Dreamed it you mean, I suppose.”
“I mean,” continued Eoa, not even looking at her, but bending her fingers in a manner which Georgie quite understood, “that I cannot prove anything, Uncle Cradock, without your permission. But here I have a letter, with the seal unbroken, and which I promised some one not to open without her leave, and now she has given me leave to open it with your consent and in the presence of the writer. Why, how pale you are, Mrs. Corklemore!”
“My Heavens! And this is England! Stealing letters, and forging them——”
“Which of the two do you mean, madam?” asked Sir Cradock, looking at her in his old magisterial manner, after examining the envelope; “either involves a heavy charge against a member of my family. Is this letter yours, or not?”
“Yes, it is,” replied Georgie, after a momentʼs debate, for if she called it a forgery, it must of course be opened; “have the kindness to give me my property. I thought there was among well–bred people a delicacy as to scrutinizing even the directions of one anotherʼs letters.”
“So there is, madam; you are quite right—except, indeed, under circumstances altogether exceptional, and of which this is one. Now for your own exculpation, and to prove that my niece deserves heavy punishment (which I will take care to inflict), allow me to open this letter. I see it is merely a business letter, or I would not ask even that; although you have so often assured me that you have no secret in the world from me. You can have nothing confidential to say to ‘Simon Chope, Esq.;’ and if you had, it should remain sacred and secure with me, unless it involved the life and honour of my son. Shall I open this letter?”
“Certainly not, Sir Cradock Nowell. How dare you to think of such a thing, so mean, so low, so prying?”
“After those words, madam, you cannot continue to be a guest of mine; or be ever received in this house again, unless you prove that I have wronged you, by allowing me to send for your husband, and to place this letter in his hands, before you have in any way communicated with him.”
“Give me my letter, Sir Cradock Nowell, unless your niece inherits the thieving art from you. As for you, wretched little Dacoit,” here she bent upon Eoa flashing eyes quite pale from wrath, for sweet Georgie had her temper, “bitterly you shall rue the day when you presumed to match yourself with me. You would like to do a little murder, I see. No doubt it runs in the family; and the Thugs and Dacoits are first cousins, of course.”