"You do--in everything. You don't care to please me; you don't take the least trouble to carry out my wishes. Being confined, on and off, to this house for years by my cursed rheumatism, unable, as you know, to go to my London office, and forced to trust to a man who may be robbing me secretly all the time he is in my service, I have endeavoured to train you to be of some assistance to me, and to make up my accounts here when I am too weak and in too much pain to make them up for myself. What has been the result? Upon looking over the papers you have written I have seldom found one of them correct. Nothing but errors in the casting-up and in the calculations of interest--errors which would have been the ruin of me had I taken your work for granted. It wouldn't matter so much if your mistakes were in my favour, but they are not; they are always against me. The sum total is always too little instead of too much. Is this what I have a right to expect from a child I have nourished and fed?" "I can't help it, father. I have told you over and over again that I have no head for figures." "'No head for figures!'" he muttered. "Where should _I_ be, I'd like to know, if I had no head for figures? In the workhouse, where you'll drive me to in the end. You will be satisfied then--eh?" "I _cannot_ help it, father," Phoebe repeated. "I never _could_ add up so as to be depended upon; I never _could_ calculate interest; I never _could_ subtract or multiply. If it hadn't been for Aunt Leth, I don't believe I should ever have been able to read or write at all." "Oh, you throw that in my teeth, because I was too poor to afford a governess for you?" "Not at all, father. You do what you think is best, I dare say. I only mention it out of justice to Aunt Leth, of whom you have not a good opinion." "How do you know that? Have I ever troubled myself about her at all? Did I commence this, or you? Am I in the habit of dragging her name into our conversations for the purpose of speaking ill of her?" "Neither of speaking ill or well, father. That is what I complain of. After what she has done for me you might have acted differently toward her." "Ah, it's coming now. She _has_ egged you on!" "She has not," said Phoebe, stamping her foot; her loyal nature was deeply wounded by those shafts aimed at one she loved so well. "She hasn't the slightest idea that I had it in my mind to speak to you at all about her, and I _have_ had it in my mind for a long time past." "I remember now what I was going to say a minute ago. We will go upon sure ground, you, I, and your precious aunt and uncle. We will have no delusions. They think I am rich--eh?" "They have never said a word about your money; they are too high-minded." "But they _do_ think I am rich. Now I will let you into a secret, and you can let them into it if you like. I am not rich; I am a pauper; and when I die you will find yourself a beggar." "Aunt Leth will give me a home, father, when it comes to that."