y
mother had been dead for three years. I was an only child and had always
lived at home, but my stepmother didn't want me. She persuaded my father
to send me away to school. I think Daddy never had any happiness after
he married her. He had always been very extravagant and easy-going.
While my precious mother lived she helped him and guided him, and
although I was only a little girl I always believed he married again
because he was greatly embarrassed for money. This woman appeared to
have plenty and she was so in love with him! If you had seen _him_, I
think you would have said he was a hundred times too handsome. Well,
from what I could see at vacation time she was never sufficiently in
love with him to let him have her money; and I am sure the last years of
his life were wretched and full of hard places because of his financial
ill-success. Poor father." The girl's voice failed and she waited,
looking down at the gloved hands in her lap. "I had been at home from
school only a few months when he died," she went on. "My stepmother
endured me and that was all. She is a quite young woman, very fond of
gayety, and she made me feel that I was very much in her way no matter
how hard I tried to keep out of it."

"I'll bet you were," put in Miss Upton _sotto voce_.

"As soon as my dear father was gone she threw off all disguise to her
impatience. She put on very becoming mourning and said she wanted to
travel. She said my father had left nothing, but that I was young and
could easily get a position. She broke up the home, found a cheap room
for me to lodge, gave me a little money and went away." Again
Geraldine's voice broke and she stopped.

"You poor child," said Miss Upton; "to try as you have and find all your
efforts failures!"

"My stepmother has some relatives who live on a farm," went on the girl.
"Before my father died we three had one talk which it always sickens me
to remember. My stepmother was saying that it was high time I went out
into the world and did something for my own support. My father perhaps
knew that he was very ill; but we did not. His death came suddenly. That
day while my stepmother talked he walked the floor casting troubled
looks at me and I knew she was hurting him. 'Everybody should be where
she can be of some use,' said my stepmother. 'I think the Carder farm
would be a fine place for Geraldine, and after all Rufus Carder has done
for you I should think you'd be glad to send her out there