ur father's sake. I feel
as if I would consent to anything not wrong or sinful that could save
him. And remember, we must be just. As things are, Lady Myrtle knows
nothing of us except that we are poor. And there is every excuse for her
deep-seated prepossessions against her brother Bernard's family. Pride
must not blind our fair judgment, Camilla.'

The girl did not reply. She felt the reasonableness of her mother's
argument.

'But oh,' she thought to herself, 'I should _hate_ to be indebted to
Lady Myrtle for any help. What would I not do--what would we all not do,
rather than that!'

Her feelings might almost have been written on her face, for Fitz, who
had been listening silently, though intently, to the conversation, here
made a remark which might have been a remonstrance with her unspoken
protest.

'There's one thing to be said,' began the boy. 'Even though it's all
Lady Myrtle's by _law_, it came to her from father's own grandfather. If
our grandfather had been good, his share would have been his and then
father's and then ours. There's a sort of right about it. It isn't as if
it was all Lady Myrtle's own in any other way--through her husband, for
instance--and that she did anything for us just out of pity, because we
were relations. That _would_ be horrid.'

Fitz was only fifteen, but he and Margaret seemed older than their
years, as is not unusual with the youngest members of a large family.
Besides, all the Harpers had grown up in full knowledge of and sympathy
with their parents' anxieties. Living as they did, in closest family
union, it would have been all but impossible to prevent its being so,
save by some forced and unnatural reticence, the evil of which would
have been greater than the risk of saddening the children by premature
cares.

So neither Mrs Harper nor her daughter felt the least inclined to 'snub'
the boy for his observation, which contained a strong element of
common-sense.

'Lady Myrtle's wealth comes _in part_ from her husband,' said Mrs
Harper. 'That makes one feel the more strongly that the Harper portion
should to some extent return to where it is so needed. But your father
has told me that the Elvedons are sure to inherit some of it, and that
is quite right.'

'And,' said Camilla, with a little effort, anxious to show her mother
that she did wish to be quite 'fair-judging,' 'you know, Fitz, as we
have often said, if our grandfather, being what he was, had got his
share, it i