herself, she determined
that the Squire, if he did come, should see the young lady. When
therefore Ruby was called into the little back parlour and found Roger
Carbury there, she thought that she had been caught in a trap. She had
been very cross all the morning. Though in her rage she had been able
on the previous evening to dismiss her titled lover, and to imply that
she never meant to see him again, now, when the remembrance of the
loss came upon her amidst her daily work,--when she could no longer
console herself in her drudgery by thinking of the beautiful things
that were in store for her, and by flattering herself that though at
this moment she was little better than a maid of all work in a
lodging-house, the time was soon coming in which she would bloom forth
as a baronet's bride,--now in her solitude she almost regretted the
precipitancy of her own conduct. Could it be that she would never see
him again;--that she would dance no more in that gilded bright saloon?
And might it not be possible that she had pressed him too hard? A
baronet of course would not like to be brought to book, as she could
bring to book such a one as John Crumb. But yet,--that he should have
said never;--that he would never marry! Looking at it in any light, she
was very unhappy, and this coming of the Squire did not serve to cure
her misery.

Roger was very kind to her, taking her by the hand, and bidding her
sit down, and telling her how glad he was to find that she was
comfortably settled with her aunt. 'We were all alarmed, of course,
when you went away without telling anybody where you were going.'

'Grandfather'd been that cruel to me that I couldn't tell him.'

'He wanted you to keep your word to an old friend of yours.'

'To pull me all about by the hairs of my head wasn't the way to make a
girl keep her word;--was it, Mr Carbury? That's what he did, then;--and
Sally Hockett, who is there, heard it. I've been good to grandfather,
whatever I may have been to John Crumb; and he shouldn't have treated
me like that. No girl'd like to be pulled about the room by the hairs
of her head, and she with her things all off, just getting into bed.'

The Squire had no answer to make to this. That old Ruggles should be a
violent brute under the influence of gin and water did not surprise
him. And the girl, when driven away from her home by such usage, had
not done amiss in coming to her aunt. But Roger had already heard a
few words from Mrs