Here the poor lady paused and glanced round the room, in every point so dainty, all the details so perfect, everything fresh, well chosen, adapted to the corner it filled; and the flowers so abundant, and so sweet. “Oh,” she said, “it wants no arguing. Money tells for so much in this life. Look at my Mary. She is younger than you are, she is clever and good, yet look at her, and look at you. I think it will break my heart!” Lucy made no reply. After all it was not her fault that she had a great deal of money, that she was a great heiress. There was no reason why that fact should break Mrs. Russell’s heart. “If I had not had it,” she faltered, apologetically, “some one else would have had it. It would not have made any difference if it had been another girl or me.” “Oh, yes, it would have made a great difference. When you don’t know the person, it never feels quite so hard. But I don’t blame you-- I don’t blame you. I suppose every one would be rich if they could; or, at least, most people,” said Mrs. Russell, with a tone which seemed to imply that she herself would be the exception, and superior to the charms of wealth. At this Lucy was silent, perhaps not feeling that she had ever wished to be poor; and yet who, she thought within herself, knew the burden of wealth as she did? it had brought her more trouble than pleasure as yet. She felt troubled and cast down, even though her girlish submission began to be modified by the faintest shy gleam of consciousness that there was something ludicrous in the situation, in her visitor’s disapproval, and her own humble half acknowledgment of the guilt of being rich. “Miss Trevor,” Mrs. Russell said, with trembling lips, “though I wish you had not found it out, or that, if you did, you had not taken any notice of it, which is what one expects from one’s friends, I can not deny that you are right. We have lost almost everything,” she said, steadying her voice in dreary sincerity. “We have been fighting on from hand to mouth--sometimes not knowing where next week’s bills were to come from. Oh, more than that--not able to pay the week’s bills; getting into debt, and nothing, nothing coming in. I kept up, always hoping that Bertie-- Bertie with his talents-- Oh, you don’t know--nobody knows how clever he is! As soon as he got an opening-- But now it seems all ended,” she added, her voice failing. “These people--oh, God, forgive them--they don’t know, perhaps, how wicked it is--these envious cruel people have half killed my boy; and I have not a penny, nothing, Miss Trevor, nothing; and the rent due, and the pupils all dropping away.”