Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine，her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.

"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or something else must have struck her as offensive，for she spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up，I went to the door; I came back again; I walked to the window，across the room，then close up to her.

Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely，and must turn: but how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence-

"I am not deceitful: if I were，I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar，you may give to your girl，Georgiana，for it is she who tells lies，and not I."

Mrs. Reed"s hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.

"What more have you to say?" she asked，rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.

That eye of hers，that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot，thrilled with ungovernable excitement，I continued- "I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again so long as I live. I will never e to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you，and how you treated me，I will say the very thought of you makes me sick，and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."