Shirley

course.
«
    »Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me.«
    »Every sister, with an eligible single brother, is considered most kind by her spinster friends.«
    »Mrs. Yorke,« said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, their blue orbs at the same time clearing from trouble, and shining steady and full, while the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale and settled: »Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?«
    »To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude: to disgust you with craft and false sentiment.«
    »Do I need this lesson?«
    »Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern young lady – morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement; which implies, I suppose, that you find little worthy of your sympathies in the ordinary world. The ordinary world – every-day, honest folks – are better than you think them: much better than any bookish, romancing chit of a girl can be, who hardly ever puts her nose over her uncle, the parson's, garden-wall.«
    »Consequently, of whom you know nothing. Excuse me, – indeed, it does not matter whether you excuse me or not – you have attacked me without provocation: I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with my two cousins, you are ignorant: in a fit of ill-humour, you have attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations, which are far more crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That I happen to be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of yours. That I am fond of books, and indisposed for common gossip, is still less your business. That I am a ›romancing chit of a girl‹ is a mere conjecture on your part: I never romanced to you, nor to anybody you know. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me: you have no just reason for disliking me; therefore keep the expression of your aversion to yourself. If at any time, in future, you evince it annoyingly, I shall answer even less scrupulously than I have done now.«
    She ceased, and sat in white and still excitement. She had spoken in the clearest of tones, neither fast nor loud; but her silver accents thrilled the ear. The speed of the current in her veins was just then as swift as it was viewless.
    Mrs. Yorke was not irritated at the reproof, worded with a severity so simple, dictated by a pride so quiet. Turning coolly to Miss Moore, she said, nodding her cap approvingly –
    »She has spirit in her, after all. Always speak as honestly as you have done just now,« she continued, »and you'll do.«
    »I repel a recommendation so offensive,« was the answer, delivered in the same pure key, with the same clear look. »I reject counsel poisoned by insinuation. It is my right to speak as I think proper: nothing binds me to converse as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have done just now, I shall never address any one in a tone so stern, or in language so harsh, unless in answer to unprovoked insult.«
    »Mother, you have found your match,« pronounced little Jessie, whom the scene appeared greatly to edify. Rose had heard the whole with an unmoved face. She now said, –
    »No: Miss Helstone is not my mother's match – for she allows herself to be vexed: my mother would wear her out in a few weeks. Shirley Keeldar manages better. Mother, you have never hurt Miss Keeldar's feelings yet. She wears armour under her silk dress that you cannot penetrate.«
    Mrs. Yorke often complained that her children were mutinous. It was strange, that with all her strictness, with all her ›strong-mindedness,‹ she could gain no command over them: a look from their father had more influence with them than a lecture from her.
    Miss Moore – to whom the position of witness to an altercation in which she took no part was highly displeasing, as being an unimportant secondary post – now, rallying her dignity, prepared to utter a discourse which was to prove both parties in the wrong, and to make it clear to each disputant that she had reason to be ashamed of herself, and ought to submit humbly to the superior sense of the individual then addressing her. Fortunately for her audience, she had not harangued above ten minutes, when Sarah's entrance with the tea-tray called her attention, first, to the fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair, and a red necklace round her throat, and secondly, and subsequently to a pointed remonstrance, to the