it must be!" said the other Charlotte. "Well, so be
it." She seated herself in a chair at a little distance from Mrs. Home,
fixed her gaze on the glowing fire, and said, "I am ready. I won't
interrupt you."

The poor Charlotte, too, looked at the fire. During the entire telling
of the tale neither of these young women glanced at the other.

"It is my own story," began Mrs. Home: then she paused, and continued,
"My father died when I was two years old. During my father's lifetime I,
who am now so poor, had all the comforts that you must have had, Miss
Harman, in your childhood. He died, leaving my mother, who was both
young and pretty, nothing. She was his second wife, for five years she
had enjoyed all that his wealth could purchase for her. He died, leaving
her absolutely penniless. My mother was, as I have said, a second wife.
My father had two grown-up sons. These sons had quarrelled with him at
the time of his marrying my young mother; they came to see him and were
reconciled on his deathbed. He left to these sons every penny of his
great wealth. The sons expressed surprise when the will was read. They
even blamed my father for so completely forgetting his wife and youngest
child. They offered to make some atonement for him. During my mother's
lifetime they settled on her three thousand pounds; I mean the interest,
at five per cent., on that sum. It was to return to them at her death,
it was not to descend to me, and my mother must only enjoy it on one
condition. The condition was, that all communication must cease between
my father's family and hers. On the day she renewed it the money would
cease to be paid. My mother was young, a widow, and alone; she accepted
the conditions, and the money was faithfully paid to her until the day
of her death. I was too young to remember my father, and I only heard
this story about him on my mother's deathbed; then for the first time I
learned that we might have been rich, that we were in a measure meant to
enjoy the good things which money can buy. My mother had educated me
well, and you may be quite sure that with an income of one hundred and
fifty pounds a year this could only be done by practising the strictest
economy. I was accustomed to doing without the pretty dresses and nice
things which came as natural to other girls as the air they breathed. In
my girlhood, I did not miss these things; but at the time of my mother's
death, at the time the story first reached my ears,