encroachments on the capital made to pay debts; or for one plausible reason after another. Of the insurances on his life only one had been kept up, and that chiefly because his bankers held it as security for some advance, and had consequently seen that the premium was regularly paid. These discoveries fell like so many thunderbolts upon the little party. I don’t think Mrs. Damerel was surprised. She sat with her eyes cast down and her hands clasped, with a flush of shame and trouble on her face. “Did you know of this, Rose?” her brother asked, sternly, anxious to find some one to blame. “I feared it,” she said, slowly, not lifting her eyes. The flush on her cheek dried up all her tears. Mr. Hunsdon, for one, believed that she was ashamed--not for the dead man’s sake--but because she had shared in the doing of it, and was confounded to find her ill doings brought into the light of day. “But, good heavens!” he said in her ear, “did you know you were defrauding your children when you wasted your substance like this? I could not have believed it. Was my brother-in-law aware of the state of the affairs? and what did he intend his family to do?” “Mr. Damerel was not a business man,” said the lawyer. “He ought to have left the management in our hands. That mining investment was a thing we never would have recommended, and the neglect of the insurance is most unfortunate. Mr. Damerel was never a man of business.” In the presence of his wife it was difficult to say more. “A man may not be a man of business, and yet not be a fool,” said Squire Hunsdon, hastily. “I beg your pardon, Rose; I don’t want to be unkind.” “Let me go, before you use such language,” she said, rising hastily. “I cannot bear it. Whatever he has done that is amiss, he is not standing here to answer before us now.” “I mean no offence, Rose. Nay, sit down; don’t go away. You can’t imagine--a man I had so much respect for--that I mean to cast any reflections. We’ll enter into that afterwards,” said Mr. Hunsdon. “Let us know at least what they will have to depend on, or if anything is left.” “There is very little left,” said Mrs. Damerel, facing the men, who gazed at her wondering, with her pale face and widow’s cap. “We had not very much at first, and it is gone; and you must blame me, if any one is to blame. I was not, perhaps, a good manager. I was careless. I did not calculate as I ought to have done. But if the blame is mine, the punishment will also be mine. Do not say anything more about it, for no one here will suffer but my children and me.” “I don’t know about that. You must be patient, and you must not be unreasonable,” said her brother. “Of course we cannot see you want; though neither George nor I have much to spare; and it is our duty to inquire.”