st woman I ever met. You will bring up little
Charlotte with every comfort and refinement, dear wife.'

"The next day my father died, and John and Jasper went to London. They
did not even wait for the funeral, though Jasper came back for it. John,
he told mother, was kept by the sudden dangerous illness of his wife.
Jasper said that John felt our father's death most dreadfully. Mother
had liked John, who was always very civil to her, but she could not bear
Jasper: she said he seemed a cleverer man than his brother, but she
never could get over a feeling of distrust towards him. The will was
never read to my mother, but Jasper came back again from London to tell
her of its contents, and then judge of her surprise--her name was not
even mentioned, neither her name nor mine. She had been married without
settlements, and every farthing of all my father's great wealth was left
to his two sons, John and Jasper. Jasper expressed great surprise; he
even said it was a monstrously unfair thing of his father to do, and
that certainly he and his brother would try to rectify it in a measure.
He then went back to London, and mother was left alone in the great
empty house. She said she felt quite stunned, and was just then in such
grief for my father that she scarcely heeded the fact that she was left
penniless. Two days afterwards a lawyer from London came down to see
her. He came with a message from her two stepsons. They were much
concerned for her, and they were willing to help her. They would allow
her, between them, as long as she lived the interest on three thousand
pounds--on one condition. The condition was this: she was never to claim
the very least relationship with them; she was to bring up her daughter
as a stranger to them. They had never approved of their father's
marrying her; they would allow her the money on condition that all
connection between them be completely dropped. The day it was renewed by
either mother or daughter, on that day the interest on the three
thousand pounds would cease to be paid. My mother was too young, too
completely inexperienced, and too bowed down with grief, to make the
least objection. Only one faint protest did she make. 'My husband said,'
she faltered, 'on the very last day of his life, he said that he wished
my little Charlotte and that other Charlotte in London to be friends.'
But the lawyer only shook his head. On this point his clients were firm.
'All communication between the famili