e raised her voice to a note of warning--"to
give you a chance. To make you think, by pointing out the path you
are treading. You are young, and it is my duty to let no young person
go downhill without one warning word. You have brought much evil on
our village--why you, a stranger, should be bent on making us all
unhappy I can't imagine. You hypocritically try to pretend that what
plain people call evil is really good. But your last action, forcing
Emma Hancock to be a thief and worse, even you cannot possibly defend.
You have much on your conscience--far, far more than I should care to
have on mine. How wicked to give all that money to Mrs. Jones. Don't
you see you are tempting people who know she is defenceless to steal
it from her? Perhaps even murder her? I saved her from that--you did
not reckon with me, you see. Take my advice--leave Symford, and go
back to where you came from"--Priscilla started--"and get something to
do that will keep you fully occupied. If you don't, you'll be laying
up a wretched, perhaps a degraded future for yourself. Don't
suppose,"--her voice grew very loud--"don't suppose we are fools here
and are not all of us aware of the way you have tried to lure young
men on"--Priscilla started again--"in the hope, of course, of getting
one of them to marry you. But your intentions have been frustrated
luckily, in the one case by Providence flinging your victim on a bed
of sickness and in the other by your having altogether mistaken the
sort of young fellow you were dealing with."

Mrs. Morrison paused for breath. This last part of her speech had been
made with an ever accumulating rage. Priscilla stood looking at her,
her eyebrows drawn down very level over her eyes.

"My son is much too steady and conscientious, besides being too much
accustomed to first-rate society, to stoop to anything so vulgar--"

"As myself?" inquired Priscilla.

"As a love-affair with the first stray girl he picks up."

"Do you mean me?"

"He saw through your intentions, laughed at them, and calmly returned
to his studies at Cambridge."

"I boxed his ears."

"What?"

"I boxed his ears."

"You?"

"I boxed his ears. That's why he went. He didn't go calmly. It wasn't
his studies."

"How dare you box--oh, this is too horrible--and you stand there and
tell me so to my face?"

"I'm afraid I must. The tone of your remarks positively demands it.
Your son's conduct positively demanded that I should box his ears. So