“Stop!” cried Dr. Grey.  “One word more like that, and I will turn you out of my house—­ay, this very night!”

There was a dead pause.  Even Miss Gascoigne was frightened.  Christian, who had never in all her life witnessed such a scene, wished she had done any thing—­borne any thing, rather than have given cause for it.  And yet the children!  Looking at that furious woman, she felt—­ any observer would have felt—­that to leave children in Miss Gascoigne’s power was to ruin them for life.  No; what must be done had better be done now than when too late.  Yet her heart failed her at sight of poor Aunt Maria’s sobs.

“Oh, dear Arnold, what is the matter?  You haven’t been vexing Henrietta?  But you never vex any body, you are so good.  Dear Henrietta, are we really to go back to our own house at Avonside?  Well, I don’t mind.  It is a pretty house, far more cheerful than the Lodge; and our tenants are just leaving, and they have kept the furniture in the best of order—­the nice furniture that dear Arnold gave us, you know.  Even if he does want us to leave the Lodge, it is quite natural.  I always said so.  And we shall only be a mile away, and can have the children to spend long days with us, and—­”

Simple Aunt Maria, in her hasty jumping at conclusions, had effected more than she thought of—­more harm and more good.

“I assure you, Maria,” said Dr. Grey with a look of sudden relief, which he tried hard—­good man!—­to conceal, “it never was my intention to suggest your leaving but since you have suggested it—­”

“I will go,” interrupted Miss Gascoigne.  “Say not another word; we will go.  I will not stay to be insulted here; I will return to my own house—­my own poor humble cottage, where at least I can live independent and at peace—­yes, Dr. Grey, I will, however you may try to prevent me.”

“I do not prevent you.  On the contrary, I consider it would be an excellent plan, and you have my full consent to execute it whenever you choose.”

This quiet taking of her at her word—­this brief, determined, and masculine manner of settling what she had no intention of doing unless driven to it through a series of feminine arguments, contentions, and storms, was quite too much for Miss Gascoigne.

“Go back to Avonside Cottage!  Shut myself up in that poor miserable hole—­”

“Oh, Henrietta!” expostulated Aunt Maria, “when it is so nicely furnished—­with the pretty little green-house that dear Arnold built for us too!”

“Don’t tell me of green-houses!  I say it is only a hole.  And I to settle down in it—­to exile myself from Avonsbridge society, that Mrs. Grey may rule here, and boast that she has driven me out of the field—­me, the last living relative of your dear lost wife, to say nothing of poor Maria, your excellent sister to whom you owe so much—­”

“Oh, Henrietta!” pleaded Miss Grey once more.  “Never mind her, dear, dear Arnold.”