Lady Scrope’s reminiscences and bits of worldly wisdom were not much more to Gertrude’s taste than her father’s had been.  It was not pride, but a sense of humiliation and shame, which kept her from facing the thought of marriage with Reuben now that she was poor, when she had been scornfully denied to him when she was thought to be a well-dowered maiden.  The idea of keeping him dangling after her in suspense was about the last that would ever have entered her head.  Her feeling was one of profound humiliation and unworthiness.  Her mother’s bitter words could never be forgotten by her; and after what her father had told her of his ruined state, it appeared to her simply impossible that she should let Reuben take possession of her and her future when she could bring nothing in return.

But she could not speak of these things to Lady Scrope; and finding her favourite irresponsive and reserved, the dame shrugged her shoulders and passed on to another room, where the children were soon heard to utter shrieks and gasps of mingled delight and terror at the stories she told them, which stories invariably fascinated them to an extraordinary degree, yet left them with a sense of undefined horror that was half delightful, half terrible.

They all thought that she was a witch, and that she could spirit any of them away to fairy land.  But since she brought sweetmeats in her capacious pockets, and had an endless fund of stories at her disposal, her visits were always welcomed, and she had certainly shown herself capable of a most unsuspected benevolence at this crisis, in presenting this house to the authorities for such a purpose, and in contributing considerably to the maintenance of the desolate little inmates.

She liked to hear their dismal stories almost as well as they liked to hear hers.  She made a point of visiting every fresh batch of children, after they had been duly fumigated and disinfected, and she seemed to take a horrible and unnatural delight in the ghastly details of desolation and death which were revealed in the artless narratives of the children.

She was one of those who, knowing much of the fearful corruption of the times, were fond of prognosticating this judgment as a sweeping away of the dregs of the earth; although she still maintained that had the water supply been purer and differently arranged, the judgment of Heaven would have had to seek another medium.

For three or four days Gertrude lived in a state of feverish expectancy and subdued excitement.  She had fancied from her father’s tone in speaking that there had been some talk of a betrothal between him and his neighbour, and that Reuben might take her consent for granted.  The idea made her restless and unhappy.  She wished the ordeal of refusing him over.  She believed she was right in taking this step; but it was a hard one, and she was sometimes afraid of her own courage.  The more she thought of the matter the more she convinced herself that