"For once, Leonora, you have performed the marriage service over my words and yours, and made the twain one," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "To put the case plainly, I could take anything--a dry crust or a hundred thousand pounds from you, but I could not take a sovereign or a sovereign's worth from your husband." "You mistake my husband, dear. But let that pass; or, rather, I cannot let it pass; for I must tell you, if Henry thought you wanted his help, he would be the first to ask me to offer it. Never shake your head, Dolly." "I won't, Nora, if it vexes you." "And say to me solemnly, love, that you only object to me because I am Henry Werner's wife; that you only refuse my present because bought with my husband's money." "That is true, Lenny. I could refuse nothing that came from you yourself." "Then, darling, you won't refuse this;" and Mrs. Werner placed in Dolly's hands a tiny little purse and pocket-book bound together in ivory. "Charley, my cousin--you remember Charley--sent me the contents of that purse to buy some little trinket for myself as a memory of the old days at Dassell. He has married an heiress, Dolly; and those waste lands in the north, my uncle was always lamenting over, have turned out to be a sort of El Dorado. Charley's dear kind letter reached me yesterday, and I straightway wrote back to him, saying, "Besides yourself I never had but one friend in all my life. I wanted to make a present to her, and you have supplied the means. Believe me, in granting me the power to do this you have given me ropes of pearls--to quote Lothair--and miles on miles of diamonds; so there it is, dear--poor Charley's Christmas gift to me, of which my husband knows nothing." And she rose, and fastening her fur cloak would have departed, but that Dolly, clutching her arm, said, "Don't go, Leonora, for an instant. Let me exorcise my demon with the help of your presence." "Pride, dear," suggested the other. "I do not know--I cannot tell. He rends me to pieces, and I hate myself and him. I want your present badly, Lenny, and yet--and yet I long to compel you to take back your gift." "Darling," answered Mrs. Werner, "though you are a mother, you never knew what it was to have a mother to love you. Fancy, for a moment I am your mother, saying, 'Dolly, keep it.' Could not that reconcile you, love. And some day it may be I or one belonging to me shall in bitter strait need your help; you would not then like to remember you had refused in your trouble to be assisted by one of us. You would not wish now to place a barrier between yourself and any one belonging to me who might hereafter ask your aid."