you ever could have known the
agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you never
would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would
have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had
some comfort! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them
were always fond of me!' She dropped on her face, before the imperious
figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her
dress.

Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of
brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she
must keep a strong constraint upon herself--I write what I sincerely
believe--or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with
her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and
character seemed forced into that expression.---Would he never come?

'The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!' she said, when she had so
far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust
herself to speak. 'YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought
on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money
would not pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home! You were a part of the
trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible
thing your people dealt in.'

'Oh, not that!' cried Emily. 'Say anything of me; but don't visit
my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as
honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you
have no mercy for me.'

'I speak,' she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and
drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily's touch, 'I speak
of HIS home--where I live. Here,' she said, stretching out her hand with
her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, 'is a
worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief
in a house where she wouldn't have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of
anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of pollution, picked up
from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then tossed
back to her original place!'

'No! no!' cried Emily, clasping her hands together. 'When he first came
into my way--that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me
being carried to my grave!--I had been brought up as virtuous as you or
any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any
lady in the world can