toned itself down.

"Did I know curly-pated, black-eyed Master Charley?" asked the old
woman. "Ay--who better? These arms, withered and yellow now, then plump
and strong, held him before he had been an hour in the world. The day he
left England I went with her ladyship to see him aboard ship. As he
shook me by the hand for the last time he said, 'You will never leave my
mother, will you, Dance?' And I said, 'Never, while I live, dear Master
Charles,' and I've kept my word."

"Her ladyship has never been like the same woman since she heard the
news of his death," resumed Dance after a pause. "It seemed to sour her
and harden her, and make her altogether different. There had been a
great deal of unhappiness at home for some years before he went away. He
and his father, Sir John--he that now lies so quiet upstairs--had a
terrible quarrel just after Master Charles went into the army, and it
was a quarrel that was never made up in this world. He was an awful
man--Sir John--a wicked man: pray that such a one may never cross your
path. The only happiness he seemed to have on earth was in making those
over whom he had any power miserable. It was impossible for my lady to
love him, but she tried to do her duty by him till he and Master Charles
fell out. What the quarrel was about I never rightly understood, but my
lady would have it that Master Charles was in the right and her husband
in the wrong. One result was that Sir John stopped the income that he
had always allowed his son, and took a frightful oath that if Master
Charles were dying of starvation before his eyes he would not give him
as much as a penny to buy bread with. But her ladyship, who had money in
her own right, said that Master Charles's income should go on as usual.
Then she and Sir John quarrelled; and she left him and came to live at
Deepley Walls, leaving him at Dene Folly; and here she stayed till Sir
John was taken with his last illness and sent for her. He sent for her,
not to make up the quarrel, but to jibe and sneer at her, and to make
her wait on him day and night, as if she were a paid nurse from a
hospital. While this was going on, and after Sir John had been quite
given up by the doctors, news came from India of Master Charles's death.
Well, her ladyship went nigh distracted; but as for the baronet, it was
said, though I won't vouch for the truth of it, that he only laughed
when the news was told him, and said that if he was plagued as much with
c