“She stormed and raved and foamed. She forbade me, on pain of her everlasting vengeance, ever to see, speak of, or _think_ about my sister. I think the root of her bitterness grew in this fact—that she had to leave her handsome city house, which really belonged to Mona, and to break up her showy establishment, which she could no longer support on Mona’s ample fortune. She sent me to school at Bellemont, and she returned to Witch Elms, breathing maledictions upon all the world.” “So that was the secret of her misanthropy.” “Yes.” “Go on, dear Britomarte.” “I went to school, but I could not obey my aunt in regard to my sister. I loved Mona; I had no one but her to love, and all the affections of my heart were concentrated upon her, I _could_ not refrain from writing to her. I knew that Bercelloni was singing in Paris. I wrote to my sister, enclosing my letter to him. In that manner a correspondence was commenced between my sister and myself, which was kept up until her death.” “She is dead, then?” said Justin, gently. “She has been dead five years. I will tell you all about that presently. In a very short time Bercelloni contrived to run through all my sister’s fortune, wasting it upon wine, dice, and other abominations. And then he left her.” “The base villain!” “He did but carry out the curse, as all his predecessors had done before him. For more than a year I had not heard from my poor sister, when one day, while still at school, I got a letter from her, postmarked New York—a letter telling me that Bercelloni had left her, that at the time of his marriage with herself he had another wife living, although of course she had not suspected it—telling me also that she was in great destitution, that her three children were all ill with diphtheria, and that she had no money to buy them food or physic, and asking me, for Heaven’s sake, to send her something, to keep her little ones from dying of want.” “Oh, my dear, what a sad trial for your young heart to bear.” “No,” said Britomarte, “it was only the family fate. But oh, where was I to get money? I had not a dollar in my purse; I had no jewelry or trinkets such as girls usually have; I had not even a watch; I had only a little gold thimble, the birth-day gift of my sister years before. It had cost six dollars. I sold it for two to a schoolmate. I also sold all my clothing, piece by piece, to the colored people of the neighborhood, so that I had but a single change left. I had to do all this secretly, and at the risk of discovery and expulsion from the school. But by the sacrifice of effects worth perhaps sixty dollars I realized about twenty, which I sent to poor Mona.” “Ah, Britomarte! To have had the heaviest burdens of life forced upon you when you were a mere school girl!” “It was the family curse. The women, like the mules, had to bear all the burdens, and like the scapegoats, had to carry all the crimes of the men.”