nsom faylow'
was her new foreman--(she intended plainly that I should 'queez' her)--and
how 'he follow' her with his eyes wherever she went. I thought, perhaps, he
fancied she might pocket some of his lace or gloves. And all the time her
great wicked eyes were rolling and glancing according to her ideas of
fascination, and her bony face grinning and flaming with the 'strong drink'
in which she delighted. She sang twaddling chansons, and being, as was her
wont under such exhilarating influences, in a vapouring mood, she vowed
that I should have my carriage and horses immediately.

'I weel try what I can do weeth your Uncle Silas. We are very good
old friends, Mr. Ruthyn and I,' she said with a leer which I did not
understand, and which yet frightened me.

I never could quite understand why these Jezebels like to insinuate the
dreadful truth against themselves; but they do. Is it the spirit of
feminine triumph overcoming feminine shame, and making them vaunt their
fall as an evidence of bygone fascination and existing power? Need we
wonder? Have not women preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputation
of witchcraft, with all its penalties, to absolute insignificance? Thus, as
they enjoyed the fear inspired among simple neighbours by their imagined
traffic with the father of ill, did Madame, I think, relish with a cynical
vainglory the suspicion of her satanic superiority.

Next morning Uncle Silas sent for me. He was seated at his table, and spoke
his little French greeting, smiling as usual, pointing to a chair opposite.

'How far, I forget,' he said, carelessly laying his newspaper on the table,
'did you yesterday guess Dudley to be?'

'Eleven hundred miles I thought it was.'

'Oh yes, so it was;' and then there was an abstracted pause. 'I have been
writing to Lord Ilbury, your trustee,' he resumed. I ventured to say, my
dear Maud--(for having thoughts of a different arrangement for you, more
suitable under my distressing circumstances, I do not wish to vacate
without some expression of your estimate of my treatment of you while
under my roof)--I ventured to say that you thought me kind, considerate,
indulgent,--may I say so?'

I assented. What could I say?

'I said you had enjoyed our poor way of living here--our rough ways and
liberty. Was I right?'

Again I assented.

'And, in fact, that you had nothing to object against your poor old uncle,
except indeed his poverty, which you forgave. I think I sai