sel.

'I'll see her,' she continued, pouring a torrent of vile abuse upon me,
which stung me with a sudden sense of anger. What had I done to be afraid
of anyone? How dared anyone in my uncle's house--in _my_ house--mix my name
up with her detestable scurrilities?

'For Heaven's sake, Miss, don't ye go out,' cried poor Quince; 'it's some
drunken creature.'

But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open the door,
exclaiming in a loud and haughty key--

'Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?'

A pink and white young lady, with black tresses, violent, weeping, shrill,
voluble, was flouncing up the last stair, and shook her dress out on the
lobby; and poor old Giblets, as Milly used to call him, was following in
her wake, with many small remonstrances and entreaties, perfectly unheeded.

The moment I looked at this person, it struck me that she was the identical
lady whom I had seen in the carriage at Knowl Warren. The next moment I was
in doubt; the next, still more so. She was decidedly thinner, and dressed
by no means in such lady-like taste. Perhaps she was hardly like her at
all. I began to distrust all these resemblances, and to fancy, with a
shudder, that they originated, perhaps, only in my own sick brain.

On seeing me, this young lady--as it seemed to me, a good deal of the
barmaid or lady's-maid species--dried her eyes fiercely, and, with a
flaming countenance, called upon me peremptorily to produce her 'lawful
husband.' Her loud, insolent, outrageous attack had the effect of enhancing
my indignation, and I quite forget what I said to her, but I well remember
that her manner became a good deal more decent. She was plainly under the
impression that I wanted to appropriate her husband, or, at least, that he
wanted to marry me; and she ran on at such a pace, and her harangue was so
passionate, incoherent, and unintelligible, that I thought her out of her
mind: she was far from it, however. I think if she had allowed me even
a second for reflection, I should have hit upon her meaning. As it was,
nothing could exceed my perplexity, until, plucking a soiled newspaper from
her pocket, she indicated a particular paragraph, already sufficiently
emphasised by double lines of red ink at its sides. It was a Lancashire
paper, of about six weeks since, and very much worn and soiled for its age.
I remember in particular a circular stain from the bottom of a vessel,
either of coffee or brown s