it would be bliss to have a man-friend--I mean a good man for a real friend, and I knew Richard would be that, though he was a brother! Most brothers are not friends to poor girls. I know three whose brothers get all they can out of them, and don't care how they have to slave for it, and then spend it on treats to other girls! But I was sure Richard was good, though he wasn't religious! So I said to mamma that, now we knew all about it, there could be no reason why we shouldn't see as much of each other as ever we liked, seeing Richard was our brother. But she paid no heed to me; she sat thinking and thinking; and I read in her face that she was not in a brown study, but trying to get at something. It was many minutes before she spoke, but she did at last, and what she told us is my secret, Barbara! But I'm not bound to keep it from you, for I know you would not hurt Richard, and you have a right to know whatever I know, for you found my life and wrapped it up in love and gave it back to me, _dear_ Barbara!--It was not a pretty story for a mother to tell her children--and it's a sore grief not to be able to think _every_thing that's good of your mother; but it's all past now;--and it ain't our fault--is it, Barbara?” “Your fault!” cried Barbara. “What do you mean?” “People treat us as if it were.” “Never you mind. You've got a Father in heaven to see to that!” “Thank you, Barbara! You make me so happy! Now I can tell you all!--'I've got it!' cried my mother. 'Bless my soul, what an ass I was not to see through it at once! Now you just listen to me: sir Wilton was married before he married his present wife. He never thought of getting rid of me for the first one, you understand, for she wasn't a lady--though they do say she _was_ a handsome creature! She was that low, you wouldn't believe!--just nobody at all! Her father was--what do you think?--a country blacksmith! And though he had me, he _would_ marry her! Oh the men! the men! they are incomprehensible! It made me mad! To think he wouldn't marry me, and he would marry her, and I might have had him myself if I'd only been as hard-hearted and stood out as long! But the fact was, I was in love with your father! No one could help it, when he laid himself out to make you! I couldn't anyhow, though I tried hard. But _she_ could! For all her beauty, she was that cold! ice was nothing to her! He told me so himself!--Well, when her time came, she died--never more than just saw the child, and died. I believe myself she died of fright; for sir Wilton told me he was the ugliest child ever came into this world! He must, said his father, have come straight from the devil, for no one else could have made him so ugly! Well, what must your father go and do next, but marry an earl's daughter!--nobody too good for him after the blacksmith's!--and within a month or so, what should his nurse do but walk off with the child! From that day to this, so far as ever I've heard, there's been no news of him.