y.
Ta-ta, as soon as you please.'

She had baffled his little cross-examination with regard to Raikes, but
on the other point he was firm. She would listen to nothing: she affected
that her mandate had gone forth, and must be obeyed; tapped with her
foot, fanned deliberately, and was a consummate queen, till he turned the
handle of the door, when her complexion deadened, she started up,
trembling, and tripping towards him, caught him by the arm, and said:
'Stop! After all that I have sacrificed for you! As well try to raise the
dead as a Dawley from the dust he grovels in! Why did I consent to visit
this place? It was for you. I came, I heard that you had disgraced
yourself in drunkenness at Fallow field, and I toiled to eclipse that,
and I did. Young Jocelyn thought you were what you are I could spit the
word at you! and I dazzled him to give you time to win this minx, who
will spin you like a top if you get her. That Mr. Forth knew it as well,
and that vile young Laxley. They are gone! Why are they gone? Because
they thwarted me--they crossed your interests--I said they should go.
George Uplift is going to-day. The house is left to us; and I believe
firmly that Mrs. Bonner's will contains a memento of the effect of our
frequent religious conversations. So you would leave now? I suspect
nobody, but we are all human, and Wills would not have been tampered with
for the first time. Besides, and the Countess's imagination warmed till
she addressed her brother as a confederate, 'we shall then see to whom
Beckley Court is bequeathed. Either way it may be yours. Yours! and you
suffer their plots to drive you forth. Do you not perceive that Mama was
brought here to-day on purpose to shame us and cast us out? We are
surrounded by conspiracies, but if our faith is pure who can hurt us? If
I had not that consolation--would that you had it, too!--would it be
endurable to me to see those menials whispering and showing their forced
respect? As it is, I am fortified to forgive them. I breathe another
atmosphere. Oh, Evan! you did not attend to Mr. Parsley's beautiful last
sermon. The Church should have been your vocation.'

From vehemence the Countess had subsided to a mournful gentleness. She
had been too excited to notice any changes in her brother's face during
her speech, and when he turned from the door, and still eyeing her
fixedly, led her to a chair, she fancied from his silence that she had
subdued and convinced him. A deli