“Ellen!” and Mr. Richards spoke very sternly; “you are as unreasonable as a child. Star has been kindly disposed from the first. It is _you_ who have tried to ruin _her_—who have oppressed and sought to degrade her in a way that is a shame to you and your promises to her dead father. It is a bitter thing to be obliged to condemn my own wife thus publicly, but I cannot calmly listen to your calumniations of her, for, instead of being our ruin, she has been our salvation. Only this fall, when my business was tottering, and my reason with it—when I was upon the verge of bankruptcy—of self-destruction—I confess it with shame and sorrow now—_she_ came to me like a beam of light and saved me from becoming both a bankrupt and a suicide. She gave me, or caused to be given to me, a check for ten thousand dollars, which set me upon my feet again. She spoke, too, such solemn, gentle words to me as I shall never forget, and which kept me from the horrible pit into which I was stumbling, and we owe all that we are and have to her. To go still farther back, you owe your life to her mother. Josephine was saved from a dreadful death by Star’s bravery; and, instead of hating her because unforeseen circumstances have raised her to a high social position, we should rejoice that it is so. Star, my dear girl, you have at least one grateful heart in my family.” He went over to her side and put out his hand to her, though he was so deeply moved that it shook like a leaf, and she took it with streaming eyes, and wholly unable to utter a single word in reply. What a wreck that heartless woman had made of his life, she thought. He was naturally a kind and tender-hearted man, and deserving of a better fate than had been his. But his wife bridled angrily, losing all control over her tongue. “I wish I had never set eyes on her face; and I wish your hand had been palsied before it ever took that ten thousand dollars from her. She came into our family and stole your heart from me by her arts and sly speeches; she wheedled out of Jacob Rosevelt the fortune that should have been mine; she tricked Josephine out of the man who should have married her—who _would_ have done so but for her; and now she has come to steal the inheritance which ought to have been mine. I _hate_ her, and I _curse_ her from the bottom of my heart!” “Then you are a thoroughly bad woman, and I am thankful that Sir Charles Thornton’s estate is to pass into more worthy hands. Much as I sympathize with and respect your husband, madam, I cannot permit my young client to be insulted in my presence, and I have the honor to wish you a very good-morning.”