I owe your mother some amends; will it be possible for me to see her ?" "If you 'll see her, it will smooth matters vastly; though to tell the truth she 'll need all her courage to face you, for she considers you an agent of the foul fiend.

She does n't see why you should have come here and set me by the ears: you are made to ruin ingenuous youths and desolate doting mothers.

I leave it to you, personally, to answer these charges.

You see, what she can't forgive--what she 'll not really ever forgive--is your taking me off to Rome.

Rome is an evil word, in my mother's vocabulary, to be said in a whisper, as you 'd say 'damnation.' Northampton is in the centre of the earth and Rome far away in outlying dusk, into which it can do no Christian any good to penetrate.