"You would be quite at a disadvantage beside my girls--ahem! You would not be happy here. And of course, you haven't a particle of claim upon us." "No, sir; not a particle," repeated Helen. "So you see, all things considered, it would be much better for you to return to your own people--ahem--_own people_," said Mr. Starkweather, with emphasis. "Now--er--you are rather shabby, I fear, Helen. I am not as rich a man as you may suppose. But I---- The fact is, the girls are ashamed of your appearance," he pursued, without looking at her, and opening his bill case. "Here is ten dollars. I understand that a young miss like you can be fitted very nicely to a frock downtown for less than ten dollars. I advise you to go out to-morrow and find yourself a more up-to-date frock than--than that one you have on, for instance. "Somebody might see you come into the house--ahem!--some of our friends, I mean, and they would not understand. Get a new dress, Helen. While you are here look your best. Ahem! We all must give the hostage of a neat appearance to society." "Yes, sir," said Helen, simply. She took the money. Her throat had contracted so that she could not thank him for it in words. But she retained a humble, thankful attitude, and it sufficed. He cared nothing about hurting the feelings of the girl. He did not even inquire--in his own mind--if she _had_ any feelings to be hurt! He was so self-centred, so pompous, so utterly selfish, that he never thought how he might wrong other people. Willets Starkweather was very tenacious of his own dignity and his own rights. But for the rights of others he cared not at all. And there was not an iota of tenderness in his heart for the orphan who had come so trustingly across the continent and put herself in his charge. Indeed, aside from a feeling of something like fear of Helen, he betrayed no interest in her at all. Helen went out of the room without a further word. She was more subdued that evening at dinner than she had been before. She did not break out in rude speeches, nor talk very much. But she was distinctly out of her element--or so her cousins thought--at their dinner table. "I tell you what it is, girls," Belle, the oldest cousin, said after the meal and when Helen had gone up to her room without being invited to join the family for the evening, "I tell you what it is: If we chance to have company to dinner while she remains, I shall send a tray up to her room with her dinner on it. I certainly could not _bear_ to have the Van Ramsdens, or the De Vornes, see her at our table." "Quite true," agreed Hortense. "We never could explain having such a cousin." "Horrors, no!" gasped Flossie. Helen had found a book in the library, and she lit the gas in her room (there was no electricity on this upper floor) and forgot her troubles and unhappiness in following the fortunes of the heroine of her story-book. It was late when she heard the maids retire. They slept in rooms opening out of a side hall.