Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but she would not hear a word.
‘No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth, - to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother’s claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude - claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no injury?’
Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually.
‘I s
