The tears were still running off her face, but she meant her smile to convey the indomitable scorn for her tormentors which not even Aunt Hannah could shake out of her.
Hannah Grieve was exasperated by the child's expression.
'Yo little sloot!' she said, seizing her by the arm again, and losing her temper for good and all, 'yo've got your mither's bad blude in yo--an it ull coom out, happen what may!' 'Hannah!' exclaimed Reuben, 'Hannah--mind yoursel.' 'My mither's _dead_,' said the child, slowly raising her dark, burning eyes.

'My mither worn't bad; an if yo say she wor, yo're a _beast_ for sayin it! I wish it wor yo wor dead, an my mither wor here instead o' yo!' To convey the concentrated rage of this speech is impossible.

It seemed to Hannah that the child had the evil eye.

Even she quailed under it.
'Go 'long wi yo,' she said grimly, in a white heat, while she opened the door--'an the less yo coom into _my_ way for t' future, the better.' She pushed the child out and shut the door.
'Yo _are_ hard on her, Hannah!' exclaimed Reuben, in his perplexity--pricked, too, as usual in his conscience.
The repetition of this parrot-cry, as it seemed to her, maddened his wife.
'She's a wanton's brat,' she said violently; 'an she's got t' wanton's blood.' Reuben was silent.

He was afraid of his wife in these moods.