"It is a shelter bought with my father's money," he returned. "But you must and shall hear me: it is necessary. She is the incarnation of selfishness: in a young person it could go no further. One can pardon anything rather than selfishness. She entirely exhausted our charity during poor Harry's long illness. She travelled with every comfort that money could give: she had her maid, Harry had his man, the children were left with my mother. One winter they went to Nassau, the next to the south of France: from both places she wrote such despairing letters that my poor old father and mother were nearly beside themselves. It was like the explosion of a bomb-shell in the household when a letter came from Virginia. Sometimes I used to read and suppress them: they were filled with shrieks and lamentations. Harry was in a rapid decline; the mental torture was more than she could bear; some one must come immediately out to her, etc. The first winter my eldest brother went, to the serious injury of his business: he is a lawyer. I went when they were in Europe, my wound not yet healed. By George! Harry looked in better health than I: every one thought I was the invalid. The doctor was called in immediately, who said I had endangered my life by the expedition. I found out my lady had been to balls and on excursions all the time she was writing those harrowing letters." "Is it possible," said Miss Featherstone, "that you think Mrs. Pinckney is false--that she deliberately tells untruths?"