“You don’t know father, Miss, when you talk like that. Indeed, indeed, you don’t know father.”
“Lizzie, Lizzie,” said Miss Potterson. “Leave him. You needn’t break with him altogether, but leave him. Do well away from him; not because of what I have told you tonight—we’ll pass no judgment upon that, and we’ll hope it may not be—but because of what I have urged on you before. No matter whether it’s owing to your good looks or not, I like you and I want to serve you. Lizzie, come under my direction. Don’t fling yourself away, my girl, but be persuaded into being respectable and happy.”
In the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty, Miss Abbey had softened into a soothing tone, and had even drawn her arm round the girl’s waist. But, she only replied, “Thank you, thank you! I can’t. I won’t. I must not think of it. The harder father is borne upon, the more he needs me to lean on.”
And then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they do soften, felt that there was