Her voice, clear as a bell ringing in frosty air, cut through the silence like a sweep of a sword-blade.
"How dare you!" she said, with a wrathful thrill in her low, intense tones.

"How dare you come here to insult me!" Insult her! He,--the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy,--considered guilty of insult in offering honorable marriage to a mere farmer's daughter! He could not believe his own ears,--and in his astonishment he looked up at her.

Looking, he recoiled and shrank into himself, like a convicted knave before some queenly accuser.

The whole form of the girl seemed to dilate with indignation.

From her proud mouth, arched like a bow, sprang barbed arrows of scorn that flew straightly and struck home.
"Always I have guessed what you wanted," she went on in that deep, vibrating tone which had such a rich quiver of anger within it; "but I never thought you would--" She paused, and a little disdainful laugh broke from her lips.