that relationship to a young fool may be a vexation
and a nuisance. However, Mrs. Doria compensated him.

What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature did not plainly
know; but her energy positively demanded to be used in some way or
other, and her instinct directed her to the offender on whom she could
use it in wrath. She wanted somebody to be angry with, somebody to
abuse. She dared not abuse her brother to his face: him she would have
to console. Adrian was a fellow-hypocrite to the System, and would, she
was aware, bring her into painfully delicate, albeit highly philosophic,
ground by a discussion of the case. So she drove to Bessy Berry simply
to inquire whither her nephew had flown.

When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is matched with a woman
of energy, she does not show much fight, and she meets no mercy. Bessy
Berry's creditor came to her in female form that night. She then beheld
it in all its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to her as a male, a
disembodied spirit of her imagination possessing male attributes,
and the peculiar male characteristic of being moved, and ultimately
silenced, by tears. As female, her creditor was terrible indeed. Still,
had it not been a late hour, Bessy Berry would have died rather than
speak openly that her babes had sped to make their nest in the Isle of
Wight. They had a long start, they were out of the reach of pursuers,
they were safe, and she told what she had to tell. She told more than
was wise of her to tell. She made mention of her early service in
the family, and of her little pension. Alas! her little pension! Her
creditor had come expecting no payment--come; as creditors are wont in
such moods, just to take it out of her--to employ the familiar term. At
once Mrs. Doria pounced upon the pension.

"That, of course, you know is at an end," she said in the calmest
manner, and Berry did not plead for the little bit of bread to her. She
only asked a little consideration for her feelings.

True admirers of women had better stand aside from the scene.
Undoubtedly it was very sad for Adrian to be compelled to witness it.
Mrs. Doria was not generous. The Pilgrim may be wrong about the sex
not growing; but its fashion of conducting warfare we must allow to be
barbarous, and according to what is deemed the pristine, or wild cat,
method. Ruin, nothing short of it, accompanied poor Berry to her bed
that night, and her character bled till morning on her pi