There is no doubt that this saint-like man could be a tiny bit provoking; and so his wife felt when he left her without again alluding to their last night's talk. After all it is wives and mothers who feel the sharpest stings of poverty. Charlotte had known what to be poor meant all her life, as a child, as a young girl, as a wife, as a mother, but she had been brave enough about it, indifferent enough to it, until the children came; but from the day her mother's story was told her, and she knew how close the wings of earthly comfort had swept her by, discontent came into her heart. Discontent came in and grew with the birth of each fresh little one. She might have made her children so comfortable, she could do so little with them; they were pretty children too. It went to her heart to see their beauty disfigured in ugly clothes; she used to look the other way with a great jealous pang, when she saw children not nearly so beautiful as hers, yet looked at and admired because of their bright fresh colors and dainty little surroundings. But poverty brought worse stings than these. The small house in Kentish Town was hot and stifling in the months of July and August; the children grew pale and pined for the fresh country air which could not be given to them; Lottie herself grew weak and languid, and her husband's pale face seemed to grow more ethereal day by day. At all such times as these did Charlotte Home's mind and thoughts refer back to her mother's story, and again and again the idea returned that a great, great wrong had been done. In the winter when this story opens, poverty came very close to the little household. They were, it is true, quite out of debt, but they were only so because the food was kept so scanty, the fires so low, dress so very insufficient to keep at a distance the winter's bitter cold; they were only out of debt because the mother slaved from morning to night, and the father ate less and less, having, it is to be feared, less and less appetite to eat. Then the wife and mother grew desperate, money must be brought in--how could it be done? The doctor called and said that baby Angus would die if he had not more milk--he must have what is called in London baby-milk, and plenty of it. Such milk in Kentish Town meant money. Lottie resolved that baby Angus should not die. In answering an advertisement which she hoped would give her employment, she accidentally found herself in her own half-brother's house. There was the wealth which had belonged to her father; there were the riches to which she was surely born. How delicious were those soft carpets; how nice those cushioned seats; how pleasant those glowing fires; what an air of refinement breathed over everything; how grand it was to be served by those noiseless and well-trained servants; how great a thing was wealth, after all!