oin' it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be done.
Every word I spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her. I kept
thinkin', 'This is Little Frank I'm talkin' to. This is Ardelia's
daughter I'm makin' miserable.' A dozen times I stopped and thought I
couldn't go on, but every time I thought of you and what you'd put up
with and been through, and I went on."

"Hephzy! you told her--"

"I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her father
and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything. She must know
it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been. I told it all. At
first she wouldn't listen, said I was--well, everything that was mean
and lyin' and bad. If she could she'd have put me out of her room, I
presume likely, but I wouldn't go. And, of course, at first she wouldn't
believe, but I made her believe."

"Made her believe! Made her believe her father was a thief! How could
you do that! No one could."

"I did it. I don't know how exactly. I just went on tellin' it all
straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she was
commencin' to believe. And she believes now, Hosy; she does, I know it."

"Did she say so?"

"No, she didn't say anything, scarcely--not at the last. She didn't cry,
either; I almost wish she had. Oh, Hosy, don't ask me any more questions
than you have to. I can't bear to answer 'em."

She paused and turned away.

"How she must hate us!" I said, after a moment.

"Why, no--why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm tryin' to
hope she doesn't. I softened it all I could. I told her why we took her
with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell her the truth at first,
or leave her, either, when she was so sick and alone. I told her why
we brought her here, hopin' it would make her well and strong, and how,
after she got that way, we put off tellin' her because it was such a
dreadful hard thing to do. Hard! When I think of her sittin' there,
white as a sheet, and lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her
fingers twistin' and untwistin' in her lap--a way her mother used to
have when she was troubled--and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel
and--and--"

She paused once more. I did not speak. Soon she recovered and went on.

"I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
puttin' off any longer. I told her I loved her as if she was my very