ked as if she could have eaten me
alive. "MR. Franklin Blake?" she repeated after me. "Murderer Franklin
Blake would be a fitter name for him."

My practice with the late Mrs. Betteredge came in handy here. Whenever
a woman tries to put you out of temper, turn the tables, and put HER out
of temper instead. They are generally prepared for every effort you
can make in your own defence, but that. One word does it as well as a
hundred; and one word did it with Limping Lucy. I looked her pleasantly
in the face; and I said--"Pooh!"

The girl's temper flamed out directly. She poised herself on her sound
foot, and she took her crutch, and beat it furiously three times on the
ground. "He's a murderer! he's a murderer! he's a murderer! He has been
the death of Rosanna Spearman!" She screamed that answer out at the top
of her voice. One or two of the people at work in the grounds near
us looked up--saw it was Limping Lucy--knew what to expect from that
quarter--and looked away again.

"He has been the death of Rosanna Spearman?" I repeated. "What makes you
say that, Lucy?"

"What do you care? What does any man care? Oh! if she had only thought
of the men as I think, she might have been living now!"

"She always thought kindly of ME, poor soul," I said; "and, to the best
of my ability, I always tried to act kindly by HER."

I spoke those words in as comforting a manner as I could. The truth is,
I hadn't the heart to irritate the girl by another of my smart replies.
I had only noticed her temper at first. I noticed her wretchedness
now--and wretchedness is not uncommonly insolent, you will find, in
humble life. My answer melted Limping Lucy. She bent her head down, and
laid it on the top of her crutch.

"I loved her," the girl said softly. "She had lived a miserable life,
Mr. Betteredge--vile people had ill-treated her and led her wrong--and
it hadn't spoiled her sweet temper. She was an angel. She might have
been happy with me. I had a plan for our going to London together like
sisters, and living by our needles. That man came here, and spoilt it
all. He bewitched her. Don't tell me he didn't mean it, and didn't know
it. He ought to have known it. He ought to have taken pity on her.
'I can't live without him--and, oh, Lucy, he never even looks at me.'
That's what she said. Cruel, cruel, cruel. I said, 'No man is worth
fretting for in that way.' And she said, 'There are men worth dying
for, Lucy, and he is one of them.' I ha