‘Yo’ naughty little spoilt thing!’ said she, setting Bella down in a hurry.  ‘Yo’ deserve a good whipping, yo’ do, and if yo’ were mine yo’ should have it.’

Sylvia had no need to stand up for the baby who had run to her arms, and was soothing herself with sobbing on her mother’s breast; for Alice took up the defence.

’The child said, as plain as words could say, “go away,” and if thou wouldst follow thine own will instead of heeding her wish, thou mun put up with the wilfulness of the old Adam, of which it seems to me thee hast getten thy share at thirty as well as little Bella at two.’

‘Thirty!’ said Mrs. Brunton, now fairly affronted.  ’Thirty! why, Sylvia, yo’ know I’m but two years older than yo’; speak to that woman an’ tell her as I’m only four-and-twenty.  Thirty, indeed!’

‘Molly’s but four-and-twenty,’ said Sylvia, in a pacificatory tone.

‘Whether she be twenty, or thirty, or forty, is alike to me,’ said Alice.  ‘I meant no harm.  I meant but for t’ say as her angry words to the child bespoke her to be one of the foolish.  I know not who she is, nor what her age may be.’

‘She’s an old friend of mine,’ said Sylvia.  ’She’s Mrs. Brunton now, but when I knowed her she was Molly Corney.’

‘Ay! and yo’ were Sylvia Robson, and as bonny and light-hearted a lass as any in a’ t’ Riding, though now yo’re a poor widow bewitched, left wi’ a child as I mustn’t speak a word about, an’ living wi’ folk as talk about t’ old Adam as if he wasn’t dead and done wi’ long ago!  It’s a change, Sylvia, as makes my heart ache for yo’, to think on them old days when yo’ were so thought on yo’ might have had any man, as Brunton often says; it were a great mistake as yo’ iver took up wi’ yon man as has run away.  But seven year ’11 soon be past fro’ t’ time he went off, and yo’ll only be six-and-twenty then; and there’ll be a chance of a better husband for yo’ after all, so keep up yo’r heart, Sylvia.’

Molly Brunton had put as much venom as she knew how into this speech, meaning it as a vengeful payment for the supposition of her being thirty, even more than for the reproof for her angry words about the child.  She thought that Alice Rose must be either mother or aunt to Philip, from the serious cast of countenance that was remarkable in both; and she rather exulted in the allusion to a happier second marriage for Sylvia, with which she had concluded her speech.  It roused Alice, however, as effectually as if she had been really a blood relation to Philip; but for a different reason.  She was not slow to detect the intentional offensiveness to herself in what had been said; she was indignant at Sylvia for suffering the words spoken to pass unanswered; but in truth they were too much in keeping with Molly Brunton’s character to make as much impression on Sylvia as they did on a stranger; and besides, she felt as if the less reply Molly received, the less likely would it be that she would go on in the same strain.  So she coaxed and chattered to her child and behaved like a little coward in trying to draw out of the conversation, while at the same time listening attentively.