It was the being separated from my little library that made the country so irksome to me. I was passionately fond of reading, and my store of literature consisted of books which had belonged to my father, and had been well thumbed by him. They were mine; he had given them to me on my birthday. Of their nature it is sufficient to say here that they were mostly classics, and that among them were very few of a light character. One morning a ray of light shone through the dark spaces of our lives. We were sitting at breakfast in our lodgings in London when Mrs. Fortress brought in a letter for my father. It was an unusual event, and my father turned it over leisurely in his hand, and examined the writing on the envelope before he opened it. But his manner changed when he read the letter; he was greatly agitated, and my mother asked anxiously: "Have you bad news?" "No," he replied, "good." He was silent for a few moments, and his next words were: "Mildred, can you bear a shock?" "Yes," said my mother, "as the news is good." "We are rich once more," my father said, and then exclaimed, as he gazed around upon the mean walls of our apartment, "Thank God!" A relative of ours had died in a distant land, and had left his fortune to my father. My father had had no expectations from him, and had, indeed, almost forgotten his existence. The greater was our surprise at this sudden change in our circumstances. Although there were formalities to be gone through before my father came into possession of the large legacy, and although seven or eight weeks elapsed before we removed from our poor lodgings, the change from poverty to riches was almost immediately apparent. My father presented me with a purse containing money. I do not remember how much, but there were sovereigns in it. I was not proud; I was not elated. The prospect of living in a better place, with better surroundings, was agreeable to me, but it did not excite me. With my purse in my pocket I went to a shop in which second-hand books were sold, and among them some I desired to possess. I bought what I wished, and carried them away with me. On my way home I noticed a little girl sitting on a doorstep, and there was a wan look in her pale face which attracted me. By her side was a crutch. As I stood looking at her for a moment, the string with which my books were tied became undone, the paper in which they were wrapped burst, and the books fell to the ground. I stooped to pick them up, but the books, being loose and of different sizes, were cumbersome to hold, and I called to the girl that I would give her a shilling if she helped me. "A shilling!" she exclaimed, and rose upon her feet, but immediately sank to the ground, with a cry of pain. "What is the matter with you?" I asked. "I haven't hurt you, have I?" She pointed to her crutch. Thinking that she wished me to hand it to her, I lifted it from the ground, and found that it was broken. "You are lame," I said.