Page:A New England Tale.djvu/81

70 see whether I am to be browbeaten by a dependant child, in my own house."

Jane had often seen her aunt angry, but she had never witnessed such passion as this, and she was for a moment confounded; but like a delicate plant that bends to the ground before a sudden gust of wind, and then is firm and erect as ever, she turned to Mrs. Wilson, and said, "Ma'am, I have never deceived or aided others to deceive you."

"I verily believe you lie!" replied her aunt, in a tone of undiminished fury.

Jane looked to her cousin, who had recoiled from the cold body of Phillis, and sat in sullen silence on a trunk at the foot of the bed,—"Elvira," said she, "you will do me the justice to tell your mother I had no part in your deception." But Elvira, well pleased to have any portion of the storm averted from her own head, had not generosity enough to interpose the truth. She therefore compromised with her conscience, and merely said,—"Jane knew I was going."

"I was sure of it,—I was sure of it; I always knew she was an artful jade; 'still waters run deep;' but she shall be exposed, the mask shall be stripped from the hypocrite."

"Aunt," said Jane, in a voice so sweet, so composed, that it sounded like the breath of music following the howlings of an enraged animal, "Aunt, we are in the chamber of death; and in a little time you, and I, and all of us, shall be as this poor creature; as you will then wish your soul to