Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a
self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was
almost cruel.
"You stock and stone!" exclaimed Miss Havisham. "You cold, cold
heart!"
"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as
she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her
eyes; "do you reproach me for being cold? You?"
"Are you not?" was the fierce retort.
"You should know," said Estella. "I am what you have made me. Take
all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all
the failure; in short, take me."
"O, look at her, look at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look
at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared!
Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first
bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of
tenderness upon her!"
"At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella, "for if I
could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could
do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I
owe everything to you. What would you have?"
"Love," replied the other.
"You have it."
"I have not," said Miss Havisham.
"Mother by adoption," retorted Estella, never departing from the
easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other
did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness,--"mother by
adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you.
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