ion than accepted or returned it.

"What!" said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, "are you tired
of me?"

"Only a little tired of myself," replied Estella, disengaging her arm,
and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at
the fire.

"Speak the truth, you ingrate!" cried Miss Havisham, passionately
striking her stick upon the floor; "you are tired of me."

Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down
at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a
self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was
almost cruel.

"You stock and stone!" exclaimed Miss Havisham. "You cold, cold heart!"

"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she
leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; "do you
reproach me for being cold? You?"

"Are you not?" was the fierce retort.

"You should know," said Estella. "I am what you have made me. Take
all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the
failure; in short, take me."

"O, look at her, look at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look at
her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I
took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its
stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!"

"At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella, "for if I could
walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what
would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to
you. What would you have?"

"Love," replied the other.

"You have it."

"I have not," said Miss Havisham.

"Mother by adoption," retorted Estella, never departing from the easy
grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never
yielding either to anger or tenderness,--"mother by adoption, I have
said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All
that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I
have nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, my
gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities."

"Did I never give her love!" cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me.
"Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all
times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me
mad, let her call me mad!"

"Why should I call you mad," returned Estella, "I, of a