Those
children would have been missed last night if you had one drop of
mother's blood in your veins! You have three helpless children under
what you are pleased to call your care' (and here Rhoda's lip curled
so scornfully that Mrs. Grubb was tempted to stab her with a curling-
pin), 'and you went to sleep without knowing to a certainty whether
they had had supper or bed! I don't believe you are a woman at all--
you are just a vague abstraction; and the only things you've ever
borne or nursed or brooded in your life have been your miserable,
bloodless little clubs and bands and unions!'
Rhoda's eyes flashed summer lightning, her nostrils quivered, her
cheeks flamed scarlet, and Mrs. Grubb sat down suddenly and heavily
on the front stairs and gasped for breath. According to her own
belief, her whole life had been passed in a search for truth, but it
is safe to say she had never before met it in so uncompromising and
disagreeable a shape.
'Perhaps when you are quite through with your billingsgate,' she
finally said, 'you will take yourself off my steps before you are
ejected. You! to presume to criticise me! You, that are so low in
the scale of being, you can no more understand my feelings and
motives than a jellyfish can comprehend a star! Go back and tell
Miss Mary,' she went on majestically, as she gained confidence and
breath, 'that it is her duty and business to find the children, since
they were last seen with her, and unless she proves more trustworthy
they will not be allowed to return to her.
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