“You stock and stone!” exclaimed Miss Havisham.  “You cold, cold heart!”

“What?” said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; “do you reproach me for being cold?  You?”

“Are you not?” was the fierce retort.

“You should know,” said Estella.  “I am what you have made me.  Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.”

“O, look at her, look at her!” cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; “Look at her, so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared!  Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!”

“At least I was no party to the compact,” said Estella, “for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do.  But what would you have?  You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to you.  What would you have?”

“Love,” replied the other.

“You have it.”

“I have not,” said Miss Havisham.

“Mother by adoption,” retorted Estella, never departing from the easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness, “Mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you.  All I possess is freely yours.  All that you have given me, is at your command to have again.  Beyond that, I have nothing.  And if you ask me to give you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.”

“Did I never give her love!” cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me.  “Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me!  Let her call me mad, let her call me mad!”

“Why should I call you mad,” returned Estella, “I, of all people?  Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I do?  Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do?  I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!”

“Soon forgotten!” moaned Miss Havisham.  “Times soon forgotten!”

“No, not forgotten,” retorted Estella.  “Not forgotten, but treasured up in my memory.  When have you found me false to your teaching?  When have you found me unmindful of your lessons?  When have you found me giving admission here,” she touched her bosom with her hand, “to anything that you excluded?  Be just to me.”

“So proud, so proud!” moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey hair with both her hands.

“Who taught me to be proud?” returned Estella.  “Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?”

“So hard, so hard!” moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.