"Alice, my girl!" began John again, in expostulatory tone.

"Miss Cox, if you please, John Jephson," interposed Alice.

"What on 'arth's come over you?" exclaimed John, with the first throb
of rousing indignation. "But if you ain't your own self no more, why,
Miss Cox be it. 'T seems to me 's if I warn't my own self no more--'s
if I'd got into some un else, or 't least hedn't got my own ears on m'
own head.--Never saw or heerd Alice like this afore!" he added,
turning in gloomy bewilderment to the housemaid for a word of human
sympathy.

The movement did not altogether please Alice, and she felt she must
justify her behaviour.

"You see, John," she said, with dignity, keeping her back towards him,
and pretending to dust the globe of a lamp, "there's things as no
woman can help, and therefore as no man has no right to complain of
them. It's not as if I'd gone an' done it, or changed myself, no more
'n if it 'ad took place in my cradle. What can I help it, if the world
goes and changes itself? Am _I_ to blame?--tell me that. It's not
that. I make no complaint, but I tell you it ain't me, it's
circumstances as is gone and changed theirselves, and bein' as
circumstances is changed, things ain't the same as they was, and Miss
is the properer term from you to me, John Jephson."

"Dang it if I know what you're a drivin' at, Alice!--Miss Cox!--and I
beg yer pardon, miss, I'm sure.--Dang me if I do!"

"Don't swear, John Jephson--leastways before a lady. It's not proper."