should find herself alone in the world, she
would have been ill-treated by her friends all round her. There was a
charm in the prospect of her desolation of which she did not wish to
be robbed by the assurance of some seventy pounds a year, to be given
to her by Captain Frederic Aylmer. To be robbed of one's grievance is
the last and foulest wrong,--a wrong under which the most enduring
temper will at last yield and become soured,--by which the strongest
back will be broken. "Well, my dear," continued Mrs. Winterfield,
when Clara made no response to this appeal for praise.

"It is so hard for me to say anything about it, aunt. What can I say
but that I don't want to be a burden to any one?"

"That is a position which very few women can attain,--that is, very
few single women."

"I think it would be well if all single women were strangled by the
time they are thirty," said Clara with a fierce energy which
absolutely frightened her aunt.

"Clara! how can you say anything so wicked,--so abominably wicked!"

"Anything would be better than being twitted in this way. How can I
help it that I am not a man and able to work for my bread? But I am
not above being a housemaid, and so Captain Aylmer shall find. I'd
sooner be a housemaid, with nothing but my wages, than take the money
which you say he is to give me. It will be of no use, aunt, for I
shall not take it."

"It is I that am to leave it to you. It is not to be a present from
Frederic."

"It is the same thing, aunt. He says you are to do it; and you told
me just now that it was to come out of his pocket."

"I should have done it myself long ago, had you told me all the truth
about your father's affairs."

"How was I to tell you? I would sooner have bitten my tongue out. But
I will tell you the truth now. If I had known that all this was to be
said to me about money, and that our poverty was to be talked over
between you and Captain Aylmer, I would not have come to Perivale. I
would rather that you should be angry with me and think that I had
forgotten you."

"You would not say that, Clara, if you remembered that this will
probably be your last visit to me."

"No, no; it will not be the last. But do not talk about these things.
And it will be so much better that I should be here when he is not
here."

"I had hoped that when I died you might both be with me together,--as
husband and wife."

"Such hopes never come to anything."

"I still think that he wou