"From Lancashire?" said she, faintly.
"Ay, madam," said Mrs. Menteith, "and that is a long road; and a child upon her arm all the way, poor thing!"
"Her name?" said Mrs. Gaunt, sternly.
"O, she is not ashamed of it. She gave it me directly."
"What, has she the effrontery to take my name?"
Mrs. Menteith stared at her with utter amazement. "Your name?" said she. "'T is a simple, country body, and her name is Vint,—Mercy Vint."
Mrs. Gaunt was very much agitated, and said she felt quite unequal to see a stranger.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Menteith. "She says she will lie at your door all night, but she will see you. 'T is the face of a friend. She may know something. It seems hard to thrust her and her child out into the street, after their coming all the way from Lancashire."
Mrs. Gaunt stood silent awhile, and her intelligence had a severe combat with her deep repugnance to be in the same room with Griffith Gaunt's mistress (so she considered her). But a certain curiosity came to the aid of her good sense; and, after all, she was a brave and haughty woman, and her natural courage began to rise. She thought to herself, "What, dares she come to me all this way, and shall I shrink from her?"
She turned to Mrs. Menteith with a bitter smile, and she said, very slowly, and clenching her white teeth: "Since you desire it, and she insists on it, I will receive Mistress Mercy Vint."