"Very well, then; let me tell you at once that I'm sick of all this hunting and bowing and scraping after a poor old blind woman's money. Hear me, you rascal! I've had not an ounce of real love or real pity on this benighted earth since my mother died, years and years ago. People have professed to pity me for what they deemed an affliction, and have whispered in the next breath that my money was surely a compensation. There have been men low enough and mean enough to be ready to marry me--professing all sorts of things--for my money; my own flesh and blood, in the shape of my dear brother Bob, is prepared to grovel and bend humbly before me, in the hope that I may remember him, and that he may fatten on what I leave when he has ceased to remember me. Listen to me again. There is no more accursed being on God's grossly mismanaged earth than the forlorn creature with money, and without that which money can not buy. Now, brother Bob, I'm getting old, and there'll be a chance for some of you before long to fly at each other's throats on my account. But I'm going to try an experiment; do you understand me--an experiment?" Mr. Robert Carlaw at once expressed the keenest interest. "Delightful! What vigour you still possess, my dear Charlotte! What is the experiment to be?" "I'll tell you. I'm going to make myself useful for once, in a way, if I can. I haven't quite lost sight of the hope that there's some good, some sweetness, in the world. You don't possess any, but that probably isn't your fault. I don't possess much, although I'm a devilish sight better than you are; but I may be able to find some. I've been haunted a little lately by the memory of that girl--our sister--who didn't care, or seem to care, a bit for any of the things I clutch so strongly, and you would clutch if you could. She was fool enough, in the world's eyes, to wait twenty years for a man who wasn't fit to touch her hand--at least that's my view--and then to die before she quite knew what the experiment was worth. God forgive me!--I might have eased the way for both of them; but I chose to laugh, as others did, and then was too ashamed afterward to do anything. Look here"--she pushed Comethup forward a little--"this is her boy; and I've learned, in a pretty long experience, to judge people by their voices and by their faces, for I can know a face better than you could if you had a dozen eyes. Bob, my dear, I'm going to make up for past neglect. This child is left alone in the world; I'm going to look after it." Mr. Robert Carlaw's jaw dropped; he hesitated a moment, and then came forward protestingly. "But, my dear Charlotte, may I remind you that you have already held out hopes to----"