had only one answer for him, and I have
only one answer for you. I proposed that we
should release each other, because reflection
had convinced me that I should best consult
his welfare and mine by retracting a rash
promise, and leaving him free to make his
choice elsewhere."

"What has my son done?" persisted Mr.
Ablewhite. "I have a right to know that.
What has my son done?"

She persisted just as obstinately on her side.

"You have had the only explanation which
I think it necessary to give to you, or to him,"
she answered.

"In plain English, it's your sovereign will
and pleasure, Miss Verinder, to jilt my son?"

Rachel was silent for a moment. Sitting
close behind her, I heard her sigh. Mr. Bruff
took her hand, and gave it a little squeeze. She
recovered herself, and answered Mr. Ablewhite
as boldly as ever.

"I have exposed myself to worse
misconstruction than that," she said. "And I have
borne it patiently. The time has gone by, when
you could mortify me by calling me a jilt."

She spoke with a bitterness of tone which
satisfied me that the scandal of the Moonstone
had been in some way recalled to her mind.
"I have no more to say." she added, wearily,
not addressing the words to anyone in
particular, and looking away from us all, out of the
window that was nearest to her.

Mr. Ablewhite got upon his feet, and pushed
away his chair so violently that it toppled over
and fell on the floor.

"I have something more to say on my side,"
he announced, bringing down the flat of his
hand on the table with a bang. "I have to say
that if my son doesn't feel this insult, I do!"

Rachel started, and looked at him in sudden
surprise.

"Insult?" she repeated. "What do you
mean?"

"Insult!" reiterated Mr. Ablewhite. " I
know your motive, Miss Verinder, for breaking
your promise to my son! I know it as
certainly as if you had confessed it in so many
words. Your cursed family pride is insulting
Godfrey, as it insulted me when I married your
aunt. Her family—her beggarly family—turned
their backs on her for marrying an honest man,
who had made his own place and won his own
fortune. I had no ancestors. I wasn't
descended from a set of cut-throat scoundrels
who lived by robbery and murder. I couldn't
point to the time when the Ablewhites hadn't
a shirt to their backs, and couldn't sign their
own names. Ha! ha! I wasn't good enough
for the Herncastles, when I married. And,
now it comes to the pinch, my son isn't good
enough for you. I suspected it, all along. You
have got the Herncastle blood in you, my young
lady! I suspected it all along."

"A very unworthy suspicion," remarked
Mr. Bruff. "I am astonished that you have
the courage to acknowledge it."

Before Mr. Ablewhite could find words to
answer in, Rachel spoke in a tone of the most
exasperating contempt.

"Surely," she said to the lawyer, "this is
beneath notice. If he can think in that way,
let us leave him to think as he pleases."

From scarlet, Mr. Ablewhite was now
becoming purple. He gasped for breath; he
looked backwards and forwards from Rachel to
Mr. Bruff in such a frenzy of rage with both of
them that he didn't know which to attack first.
His wife, who had sat impenetrably fanning
herself up to this time, began to be alarmed,
and attempted, quite uselessly, to quiet him.
I had, throughout this distressing interview,
felt more than one inward call to interfere with
a few earnest words, and had controlled myself
under a dread of the possible results, very
unworthy of a Christian Englishwoman who looks,
not to what is meanly prudent, but to what is
morally right. At the point at which matters
had now arrived, I rose superior to all
considerations of mere expediency. If I had
contemplated interposing any remonstrance of my
own humble devising, I might possibly still
have hesitated. But the distressing domestic
emergency which now confronted me, was most
marvellously and beautifully provided for in
the Correspondence of Miss Jane Ann Stamper
—Letter one thousand and one, on "Peace in
Families." I rose in my modest corner, and I
opened my precious book.

"Dear Mr. Ablewhite," I said, "one word!"

When I first attracted the attention of the
company by rising, I could see that he was on
the point of saying something rude to me. My
sisterly form of address checked him. He
stared in heathen astonishment.

"As an affectionate well-wisher and friend,"
I proceeded, "and as one long accustomed to
arouse, convince, prepare, enlighten, and fortify
others, permit me to take the most pardonable
of all liberties—the liberty of composing your
mind."

He began to recover himself; he was on the
point of breaking out—he would have broken
out, with anybody else. But my voice
(habitually gentle) possesses a high note or so, in
emergencies. In this emergency, I felt
imperatively called upon to have the highest voice
of the two.

I held up my precious book before him; I
rapped the open page impressively with my
forefinger. "Not my words!" I exclaimed, in
a burst of fervent interruption. "Oh, don't
suppose that I claim attention for my humble
words! Manna in the wilderness, Mr.
Ablewhite! Dew on the parched earth! Words
of comfort, words of wisdom, words of love—
the blessed, blessed, blessed words of Miss Jane
Ann Stamper!"

I was stopped there by a momentary impediment
of the breath. Before I could recover
myself, this monster in human form shouted
out furiously,

"Miss Jane Ann Stamper be——!"

It is impossible for me to write the awful
word, which is here represented by a blank. I