She had trouble, too, from another quarter, which was perhaps worst of all. As the months, went on and ran into years, Stella’s astonishment that she was not recalled, her complaints, her appeals and denunciation of her sister as able to help her if she would do so, became manifold and violent. She accused Katherine of the most unlikely things, of shutting up their father, and preventing him from carrying out his natural impulses--of being her, Stella’s, enemy when she had so often pledged herself to be her friend, even of having encouraged her, Stella, in the rash step she had taken, with intent to profit by it, and build her own fortune on her sister’s ruin. Any stranger who had read these letters would have supposed that Katherine had been the chief agent in Stella’s elopement--that it had been she that had arranged everything, and flattered Stella with hopes of speedy recall, only to betray her. Katherine was deeply moved by this injustice and unkindness at first, but soon she came to look at them with calm, and to take no notice of the outcries which were like outcries of a hurt child. There were so many things that called forth pity that the reproaches were forgotten. Stella’s life--which had been so triumphant and gay, and which she had intended and expected should be nothing but a course of triumph and gaiety--had fallen into very different lines from any she had anticipated. After she had upbraided her sister for keeping her out of her rights, and demanded with every threat she could think of their restoration, and that Katherine should conspire no more against her, her tone would sink into one of entreaty, so that the epistle which had begun like an indictment ended like a begging letter. Stella wanted money, always money; money to keep her position, money to pay her debts, money at last for what she called the common necessaries of life. There was scarcely a mail which did not bring over one of these appeals, which tore Katherine’s heart. Though she was the daughter of so rich a man, she had very little of her own. Her allowance was very moderate, for Mr. Tredgold, though he was liberal enough, loved to be cajoled and flattered out of his money, as Stella had done--an art which Katherine had never possessed. She had a little from her mother, not enough to be called a fortune, and this she sent almost entirely to her sister. She sent the greater part of her allowance to Lady Somers, content to confine herself to the plainest dress, in order to satisfy the wants of one who had always had so many wants. It was thus that her best years, the years of her brightest bloom and what ought to have been the most delightful of her life, passed drearily away. CHAPTER XXXIV.