Here Maud, who was not really an ill-tempered girl, became overwhelmed by the contemplation of her own wrongs, and began to sob. "I never--wore--a year-behind-fashion dress before, and--when I suggest it--just to save the expense--I'm told I'm heartless. As if it was my fault that mamma's settlement was so much waste paper, and that our money went to pay--" "Really, Maud, you are too bad," flared up her youngest sister. "If it was any one's fault, it was Uncle Tom's, for not being more careful. The governor was awfully good to us always. Ah, things were very different then!" This remark turned on the widow's ready tears. "Very different indeed. Three in the kitchen, and I wouldn't like to say how many in the stable. And though I don't wish to repine against Providence, yet caps are so expensive. I can't think why, for they are only muslin; but Miss Crowe says she can't supply me with one that is really respectful under five rupees." "It is all very well for you to talk, Mabel," insisted Maud from the rocking-chair; "you have a settlement of your own in prospect." "So might you," retorted the other, "if you were wise, instead of wasting your time over men who mean nothing, like that handsome Captain Stanley." "Yes!" yawned Mildred. "It is the stubby Majors with half-a-dozen motherless children growing up at home who marry." Mabel flushed through her sallow skin and in her turn became tearful; for in truth her _fiancé_ was but too accurately described in these unflattering terms. "It is not your part to jeer at me for sacrificing myself to the interests of you girls. In our unfortunate position it is our duty to avail ourselves of the chances left us, and not to go hankering after penniless probationers in the Post-Office." Yet one more recruit for pocket-handkerchief drill rushed to the front, though more in anger than sorrow. "If you are alluding to Willie Allsop," retorted Mildred fiercely, "I dare say he will be as well off as your Major some day. At any rate I'm not going to perjure myself for money, like some people." "Oh, girls, girls!" whimpered the widow plaintively, "don't quarrel and wake Charlie, for the doctor said he was to be kept quiet and not excited. Really, misfortunes come so fast, and things are so dear,--to say nothing of Parrish's Chemical Food for Charlie--that I don't know where to turn. If poor Dick had but lived! It was too bad of those nasty Afghans to kill the dear boy just as he was getting on, and being so generous to me. I always stood up for Dick; he had a warm heart, and people don't make their own tempers, you know." Belle, who had been sitting silent at the window, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously, felt as if she must stifle. "I wish," she said in a low voice, "you would let me go on teaching as I did in the winter. Why should we mind, even if there are old friends here now? I am not ashamed of working."