"She be'ant a' going alone ow'r that lonesome heath," said the compassionate Joe, who could not bear to see a pretty girl in distress, and who could not look in Dorothy's indignant face and believe her guilty, "if I drive her whome mysel."
"You'll do no sich thing, Mr. Joe Barford," cried Letty, putting her arms akimbo, and stepping between her husband and Dorothy. "I 'spose you want to run off wi' the brazen-faced minx?"
"Thank you, Mr. Barford," said Dorothy sternly. "I am able to take care of myself. There is nothing to fear."
"Nothing to fear," repeated Joe, lifting his hand with a gesture of astonishment. "Why, lass, the place is haunted. Did'st never hear that?"
"Yes, wi' her precious mother's ghost," sneered Letty. "Like mother, like child."
Dorothy started. She cast upon the speaker a look of ineffable contempt, and left the house without a word of parting to its inhabitants, never stopping for a moment till she gained the high road. "Good heavens!" she cried, when once more alone, and beneath the wide canopy of the night, "are these people fiends, that they rejoice in the supposition of my guilt, and condemn me on mere hearsay, without the least proof that I have committed this great sin?
"Is this human nature, of the wickedness of which I have heard so much, and which I found so hard to believe. I will never trust to kind looks and flattering words again. I tried to serve these people to the best of my ability; they all seemed pleased with me and spoke me fair, yet the first breath of evil that assails my character has turned them into bitter enemies. If this be life, how much better to—!" The rest of the unspoken sentence her better reason silenced.
This was only one of the many hard lessons people learn in the world. Dorothy was as yet a novice to the world and its crooked paths, and she felt indignant at the sorry treatment she had received from it during the past few weeks.