me again.

Strange to say, my daughter resolutely resisted me. When she HAD got a
notion once fixed in her mind she was, like other half-witted people,
as obstinate as a mule in keeping it. We quarrelled finely, and Mrs.
Clements, not liking to see it, I suppose, offered to take Anne away to
live in London with her. I should have said Yes, if Mrs. Clements had
not sided with my daughter about her dressing herself in white. But
being determined she should NOT dress herself in white, and disliking
Mrs. Clements more than ever for taking part against me, I said No, and
meant No, and stuck to No. The consequence was, my daughter remained
with me, and the consequence of that, in its turn, was the first
serious quarrel that happened about the Secret.

The circumstance took place long after the time I have just been
writing of. I had been settled for years in the new town, and was
steadily living down my bad character and slowly gaining ground among
the respectable inhabitants. It helped me forward greatly towards this
object to have my daughter with me. Her harmlessness and her fancy for
dressing in white excited a certain amount of sympathy. I left off
opposing her favourite whim on that account, because some of the
sympathy was sure, in course of time, to fall to my share. Some of it
did fall. I date my getting a choice of the two best sittings to let
in the church from that time, and I date the clergyman's first bow from
my getting the sittings.

Well, being settled in this way, I received a letter one morning from
that highly born gentleman (now deceased) in answer to one of mine,
warning him, according to agreement, of my wishing to leave the town
for a little change of air and scene.

The ruffianly side of him must have been uppermost, I suppose, when he
got my letter, for he wrote back, refusing me in such abominably
insolent language, that I lost all command over myself, and abused him,
in my daughter's presence, as "a low impostor whom I could ruin for
life if I chose to open my lips and let out his Secret." I said no more
about him than that, being brought to my senses as soon as those words
had escaped me by the sight of my daughter's face looking eagerly and
curiously at mine. I instantly ordered her out of the room until I had
composed myself again.

My sensations were not pleasant, I can tell you, when I came to reflect
on my own folly. Anne had been more than usually crazy and queer that
year