ght, after all my pains and labour, and when
you are going, through me, to be rendered independent,' her mother
almost shrieked in her passion, while her palsied head shook like a
leaf, 'that there is corruption and contagion in me, and that I am not
fit company for a girl! What are you, pray? What are you?'

'I have put the question to myself,' said Edith, ashy pale, and pointing
to the window, 'more than once when I have been sitting there, and
something in the faded likeness of my sex has wandered past outside; and
God knows I have met with my reply. Oh mother, mother, if you had but
left me to my natural heart when I too was a girl--a younger girl than
Florence--how different I might have been!'

Sensible that any show of anger was useless here, her mother restrained
herself, and fell a whimpering, and bewailed that she had lived too
long, and that her only child had cast her off, and that duty towards
parents was forgotten in these evil days, and that she had heard
unnatural taunts, and cared for life no longer.

'If one is to go on living through continual scenes like this,' she
whined,'I am sure it would be much better for me to think of some
means of putting an end to my existence. Oh! The idea of your being my
daughter, Edith, and addressing me in such a strain!'

'Between us, mother,' returned Edith, mournfully, 'the time for mutual
reproaches is past.

'Then why do you revive it?' whimpered her mother. 'You know that you
are lacerating me in the cruellest manner. You know how sensitive I am
to unkindness. At such a moment, too, when I have so much to think of,
and am naturally anxious to appear to the best advantage! I wonder at
you, Edith. To make your mother a fright upon your wedding-day!'

Edith bent the same fixed look upon her, as she sobbed and rubbed her
eyes; and said in the same low steady voice, which had neither risen nor
fallen since she first addressed her, 'I have said that Florence must go
home.'

'Let her go!' cried the afflicted and affrighted parent, hastily. 'I am
sure I am willing she should go. What is the girl to me?'

'She is so much to me, that rather than communicate, or suffer to be
communicated to her, one grain of the evil that is in my breast, mother,
I would renounce you, as I would (if you gave me cause) renounce him in
the church to-morrow,' replied Edith. 'Leave her alone. She shall not,
while I can interpose, be tampered with and tainted by the lessons I
have learne