ier. But now and here
all was different. She longed for the money that would have enabled
her to do so much more, and yet she felt it, somehow, sweet to be as
they. Her consciousness of her own past wrong-doing had so penetrated
her soul with humility that she was like a totally different being.

She had said nothing to the rector of her determination not to touch
the money that her late husband had left her, but she strictly
adhered to this resolve. It was impossible. She simply felt she could
not. She found no difficulty in forgiving him for all that he had
done. She was too tender-hearted to bear malice toward the dead,
but she could not touch his money. Since she had once thought about
it--receiving food and clothes and comforts from his hands--she had
realized that it was an impossibility. She knew that the money was
deposited in bank for her, but there it might remain. She had told
Horace that she would not touch it, and he should see that she would
keep her word.

Then came a thought that made her smile. He had wished to force upon
her the acceptance of a larger sum, because it was not proper that
Lord Hurdly's widow should live otherwise than in pomp and
circumstance. If he could see her now! This it was that made her
smile.

She had shut up all the house except the rooms on the first floor, in
which she and Nora lived alone. She kept no other servant, and this
economy it was that enabled her to give to others. She had almost no
personal wants, and the income which had sufficed for her mother and
herself was more than enough for her alone. A little sting of injured
pride there had been at first, when her poverty became apparent to
the neighbors, who naturally expected her to enlarge rather than
curtail her expenses; but she soon got the better of this. The issues
of her life were in a wider field than mere neighborhood comment,
and, besides this, her friends and associates were now chosen chiefly
from the class who were too ignorant for such comment and
speculation.

For Bettina had thrown herself with a passionate fervor into the work
which her hands had found to do. The one assuagement for the pain in
her own heart seemed to be the alleviation of the pain in other
hearts. She felt, also, a sense of thankfulness for the knowledge
which had come to her through the rector, which made the whole work
and service of her life seem all too little for her to give in return
for this boon. As for Horace, her feelin