“Psha,” said Mrs. Morrison, greatly incensed at having the Scriptures, her own speciality, quoted at her.  “I’d like to know what bitterness yours has known, unless it’s the bitterness of a bad conscience.  Now I’ve come here to-day”—­she 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 I did.”

“Of all the shameless—­”

“I’m afraid you’re becoming like him—­altogether impossible.”

“You first lure him on, and then—­oh, it is shameful!”