"No, _no, no_! Why on earth should I? Let me finish my sentence. I was only wondering if it might not help to pass the time if I told you a story? It's not a very pleasant one, but I think it might help you over some hard places yourself, if you heard it; and if you would tell part of it--as much as you think best--to your family after we get home, I should be very grateful. Some of it should, in all justice, have been told to you all long ago, since you were so good as to receive me when you knew nothing whatever about me, and the rest is--just for you." "Is the telling going to be hard for you?" "I don't think so--this way--in the dark--and alone. It has all seemed too unspeakably dreadful to talk about until just lately; but I've been growing so much happier--I think it may be a relief to tell some one now." "Then do, by all means. I feel--" "Yes--" "More honored than I can tell you by your--confidence." "Austin--when it's _in_ you to say such nice things as you have several times to-night, _why_ do you waste time saying disagreeable ones--the way you usually do to everybody?" "I've just told you, I don't know, but I'm going to do better." "Well--there was once a girl, whose father had died when she was a baby and who lived with her mother and a maid in a tiny flat in New York City. It was a pretty little flat, and they had plenty to eat and to wear, and a good many pleasant friends and acquaintances; but they didn't have much money--that is, compared to the other people they knew. This girl went to a school where all her mates had ten times as much spending money as she did, who possessed hundreds of things which she coveted, and who were constantly showering favors upon her which she had no way of returning. So, from the earliest time that she could remember, she felt discontented and dissatisfied, and regarded herself as having been picked out by Providence for unusual misfortunes; and her mother agreed with her. "I fancy it is never very pleasant to be poor. But if one can be frankly poor, in calico and overalls, the way you've been, I don't believe it's quite so hard as it is to be poor and try 'to keep up appearances'; as the saying is. This girl learned very early the meaning of that convenient phrase. She gave parties, and went without proper food for a week afterwards; she had pretty dresses to wear to dances, and wore shabby finery about the house; she bought theatre tickets and candy, but never had a cent to give to charity; she usually stayed in the sweltering city all summer, because there was not enough money to go away for the summer, and still have some left for the next winter's season; and she spent two years at miserable little second-rate 'pensions' in Europe--that pet economy of fashionable Americans who would not for one moment, in their own country, put up with the bad food, and the unsanitary quarters, and the vulgar associates which they endure there.