self to argue
patiently with his old friend's daughter; "it does not simply lie
between you and him--a silly girl who has let herself be taken in by a
sharper. That would be no more than giving a sixpence to a fellow that
tells me he lost his arm at Sebastopol when he has got it sewn up in a
bag. But you have been getting subscriptions from all the world, making
yourself answerable to them for having these children educated, and
then, for want of proper superintendence, or the merest rational
precaution, leaving them to this barbarous usage. I don't want to be
hard upon you, but you are accountable for all this; you have made
yourself so, and unless you wish to be regarded as a sharer in the
iniquity, the least you can do by way of compensation, is not to make
yourself an obstruction to the course of justice."

"I don't much care how I am regarded," said Rachel, with subdued tone
and sunken head; "I only want to do right, and not act spitefully and
vindictively before he has had warning to defend himself."

"Or to set off to delude as many equal foo--mistaken people as he can
find elsewhere! Eh, Rachel? Don't you see, it this friend of yours
be innocent, a summons will not hurt him, it will only give him the
opportunity of clearing himself."

"Yes, I see," owned Rachel, and overpowered, though far from satisfied,
she allowed herself to be brought back, and did what was required
of her, to the intense relief of her mother. During her three minute
conference no one in the study had ventured on speaking or stirring, and
Mrs. Curtis would not thank her biographer for recording the wild alarms
that careered through her brain, as to the object of her daughter's
tete-a-tete with the magistrate.

It was over at last, and the hall of justice broke up. Mary Morris was
at once in her mother's arms, and in a few minutes more making up for
all past privations by a substantial meal in the kitchen. But Mrs.
Kelland had gone to Avoncester to purchase thread, and only her daughter
Susan had come up, the girl who was supposed to be a sort of spider,
with no capacities beyond her web. Nor did Rachel think Lovedy capable
of walking down to Mackarel Lane, nor well enough for the comfortless
chairs and the third part of a bed. No, Mr. Grey's words that Rachel was
accountable for the children's sufferings had gone to her heart. Pity
was there and indignation, but these had brought such an anguish of
self-accusation as she could only appea