'Biddy, I know you are your mistress's trusted friend—that she confides in you.'
'Ay.'
'Use every argument in your power, then, to induce her to tell her son about his father.'
'I dare not, sir; she would fly into one of her mad passions and strike me.'
'Good heavens!'
'I have work enough with her sometimes; she has always had her tantrums from a child; but I'm used to them, and I know how to humour her. She will never tell Mr. Cyril; I know them both too well for that.'
'You heard all I said, Biddy. You need not deny it. You have been listening at the door.'
'It is not me who would deny it,' she returned boldly; but there was a flush on her withered cheek. 'There is nothing that my mistress could say that she would wish to keep from me. I have been with her all her life. As a baby she slept in my bosom, and I loved her as my own child. Ah, it was an ill day for Miss Olive when she took up with that good-for-nothing Matthew O'Brien; bad luck to him and his!'
'Nevertheless, he is her husband, Biddy.'
'I don't know about that, sir. I was never married myself, and fourteen years is a long absence. Aren't they more her children than his, when she has slaved and sacrificed herself for them? You meant it well, sir, what you said to the mistress; but I take the liberty of differing from you, and I would sooner bite my tongue out than speak the word that will bring them all to shame.'