t care in the least," returned Evelyn.

"Why Eva, what has come over you?" queried her mother. "It is something
new for you to be so indifferent in regard to your dress."

"You are the only one I care to please now, mamma," replied the little
girl in tremulous tones. "I think there is no one else likely to be
interested in the matter."

Laura was touched. "You are a good child," she said; "and I think you may
well trust everything to my taste; it is considered excellent by my
friends and acquaintance."

With thoughtfulness beyond her years Evelyn presently drew her mother
aside, out of earshot of the dressmaker, and whispered, "Mamma dear,
don't put too much expense on me; you know there is no one to earn money
for us now."

"No, but he cannot have left us poor," rejoined the mother; "for I know
his business has paid very well indeed for years past. And of course his
wife and child inherit all he has left."

"I do not know! I do not care!" cried Evelyn, hot tears streaming from
her eyes. "What is money without papa to help us enjoy it?"

"Something that it is very convenient, indeed absolutely necessary, to
have in this practical world, as you will know when you are older and
wiser," returned her mother, with some severity of tone; for Evelyn's
words had seemed to her like a reproach, and an insinuation that Eric's
daughter was a deeper and more sincere mourner for him than his widow.

Such was the fact, but she was by no means ready to admit it. And she had
loved him, perhaps, as well as she was capable of loving any one but
herself. Since her return home she had been too much occupied with his
critical condition, and then his death, to give a thought to the state of
his affairs or the disposition to be made of his property.

True, she had little cause for anxiety in regard to these things, knowing
that he had no financial entanglements, and having heard him say on more
than one occasion, that whatever he might possess at the time of his
death would be left to his wife and child; yet had she been an unloving
wife, queries, hopes and fears in regard to the amount he was leaving her
would have found some place in her thoughts.

And now that Evelyn had in a manner opened the subject, they did so; she
was no longer absorbed in her grief; it was present with her still, but
her thoughts were divided between it on the one hand and her mourning and
future prospects on the other.

It now occurred to her that Evelyn,