ailed for a million, and we are totally
ruined--your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, only that your uncle has his
benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest
for the boys, the family can go on. All the property our poor father
saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. There is nothing I can call
my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my
heart to have to tell it you. Of course we cannot help thinking what a
pity it was that you went away just when you did. But I shall never
reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I
could. On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the
change you will find. We shall perhaps leave Offendene at once, for we
hope that Mr. Haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it
off my hands. Of course we cannot go to the rectory--there is not a
corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us,
and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne's charity, until I see what
else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the
tradesmen besides the servants' wages. Summon up your fortitude, my
dear child; we must resign ourselves to God's will. But it is hard to
resign one's self to Mr. Lassman's wicked recklessness, which they say
was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me
and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in
the cloud--I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant
for poverty. If the Langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put
yourself under some one else's care for the journey. But come as soon
as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma,

FANNY DAVILOW.

The first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. The
implicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease,
where any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for,
had been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma's, being fed there
by her youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a
large part of her consciousness. It was almost as difficult for her to
believe suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of
humiliating dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong
current of her blooming life the chill sense that her death would
really come. She stood motionless for a few min