abit of treating her sister with the most painstaking consideration
for her nerves and her feelings, as if she were an invalid. She was
herself greatly troubled at the thought that her father had
overtasked his resources to purchase such a valuable thing, but she
would not for worlds have intimated such a thing to Ina.

"Well, I do worry," said Ina. "I cannot help it. It was too much for
poor papa to do." She even shed a few tears over the pearl, and
Charlotte kissed and coddled her a good deal for comfort.

"It is such a beauty, dear," she said. "Look at it and take comfort
in it, darling."

"Yes, it is a beauty," sobbed Ina. "I never saw such a pearl except
that one of poor papa's, the one he has in his scarf-pin that
belonged to that friend of his who died, you know."

"Yes, dear," said Charlotte, "I know. It is another just such a
beauty. Don't cry any more, honey. Think how happy you are to have
it."

But Charlotte herself, after she had gone to bed in her own little
room, had sobbed very softly lest her sister should hear her, until
Ina was asleep. Her sister's remarks had brought a suspicion to her
own mind. "Poor papa!" she kept whispering softly, to herself. "Poor
papa!" It seemed to her that her heart was breaking with
understanding of and pity for her father.

Charlotte's own gift to Ina had been some pieces of embroidery. She
was the only one in the family who excelled in any kind of
handicraft. "Ina will like this better than anything," she had told
her aunt Anna, "and then it will not tax poor papa, either. It will
cost nothing."

Her aunt had looked at her a minute, then suddenly thrown her arms
around her and kissed her. "Charlotte, you little honey, you are the
best of the lot!" she had said.

Charlotte herself, the night of the wedding, was looking rather pale
and serious. Many observed that she was the least good-looking of the
family. Several Banbridge young men essayed to make themselves
agreeable to her, but she did not know it. She was very busy. Besides
their one maid there were the waiters sent by the caterer, and Eddy
was exceedingly troublesome. He was a nervous boy, and unless
directly under his father's eye, almost beyond restraint when
impressed, as he was then, with an exaggerated sense of his own
importance. His activities took especially the form of indiscriminate
and superfluous helping the guests to refreshments, until the waiters
waxed fairly murderous, and one of them even