"Have you given any consideration," he asked, "to your circumstances? Do you think that any man would receive you--as you are?" It was a cruel taunt, and she felt it. "Yes, I have thought of it," she answered sadly, "and it is a deep trouble to me. If I dared to make an appeal to you----" "Make it," he said, during the pause that ensued. "I am your sister, Fox. I have done nothing to disgrace you--nothing of which I should be ashamed. If Mr. Dixon tells me he has a home ready for me, how can I go to him--as I am?" She looked down at her feet, she spread out her hands piteously, and the tears started to her eyes. "Well?" "I think," she said, in an imploring tone, "if father could have seen the future he would have made some provision for me, ever so little, that would enable me to enter a home of my own in a creditable manner." "What is it, dear Charlotte, that you wish me to do for you?" "Give me a little money, Fox, to buy a few decent clothes for myself." "In other words," he said, "furnish you with the means to act in direct opposition to our wishes, to what we are convinced is best for your welfare." "It is a hard way of expressing it, Fox." "It is the correct way, Charlotte. I perceive that you are speaking more humbly now. You are not so defiant. You recognize, after all, that you cannot exactly do without us." "You are my brother. Mother has only you and me." "Your brother," said Mrs. Fox-Cordery, in a tone of relentless severity, "has been a blessing to me. It is more than I can say of you." "I have worked hard, mother; I have had few pleasures; I have not cost you much." "You have cost us too much. We have been overindulgent to you, and in return you insult your brother and set yourself in direct opposition to us. When your father died he left his property wisely. He knew you were not to be trusted; he knew that your ungrateful, willful nature would bring irreparable mischief upon us if it were left uncontrolled. He said as much to me. 'Charlotte will need a strong hand over her,' he said, 'to prevent her bringing shame to your door.'" "No, no, mother!" "His very words. I have never repeated them to you because I wished to spare your feelings. 'To prevent her bringing shame to your door. Keep a strict watch over her for all your sakes.' We have done so in fulfillment of our duty, and now it has come to this." Mr. Fox-Cordery knew that these words had never been uttered by his father, and that there was not a grain of truth in them, but he thoroughly approved of the unworthy device. When he was working to gain a point, there was no trick that was not justifiable in his eyes; and although upon the present occasion he did not exhibit any consciousness of his mother's duplicity, neither of them was deceived by it or ashamed of it.