“The excitement had been too great; I sunk, a little exhausted, on the sofa. They bought me a letter. It was black-edged. I tore it open with a scream. My father was dead.” CHAPTER XIV. “I WAS prostrated, stupefied. I don't know what I did, or how long I sat there. But Cornelia came to congratulate me, and found me there like stone, with the letter in my hand. She packed up my clothes, and took me home with her. I made no resistance. I seemed all broken and limp, soul and body, and not a tear that day. “Oh, sir, how small everything seems beside bereavement! My troubles, my insults, were nothing now; my triumph nothing; for I had no father left to be proud of it with me. “I wept with anguish a hundred times a day. Why had I left New York? Why had I not foreseen this every-day calamity, and passed every precious hour by his side I was to lose? “Terror seized me. My mother would go next. No life of any value was safe a day. Death did not wait for disease. It killed because it chose, and to show its contempt of hearts. “But just as I was preparing to go to Havre, they brought me a telegram. I screamed at it, and put up my hands. I said 'No, no;' I would not read it, to be told my mother was dead. I would have her a few minutes longer. Cornelia read it, and said it was from her. I fell on it, and kissed it. The blessed telegram told she was coming home. I was to go to London and wait for her. “I started. Cornelia paid my fees, and put my diploma in my box. _I_ cared for nothing now but my own flesh and blood--what was left of it--my mother. “I reached London, and telegraphed my address to my mother, and begged her to come at once and ease my fears. I told her my funds were exhausted; but, of course, that was not the thing I poured out my heart about; so I dare say she hardly realized my deplorable condition--listless and bereaved, alone in a great city, with no money. “In her next letter she begged me to be patient. She had trouble with her husband's executors; she would send me a draft as soon as she could; but she would not leave, and let her child be robbed. “By-and-by the landlady pressed me for money. I gave her my gowns and shawls to sell for me.” “Goose!” “And just now I was a fox.” “You are both. But so is every woman.” “She handed me a few shillings, by way of balance. I lived on them till they went. Then I starved a little.” “With a ring on your finger you could have pawned for ten guineas!” “Pawn my ring! My father gave it me.” She kissed it tenderly, yet, to Vizard, half defiantly. “Pawning is not selling, goose!” said he, getting angry. “But I must have parted with it.” “And you preferred to _starve?”_ “I preferred to starve,” said she, steadily.