“Your home?” he returned, severely. “For how many years have you cheated my dear ones out of _their_ home—out of the love and sheltering care which should have been theirs? While my wife was toiling to earn her own support and to make provision for my child, you were spending money which rightfully belonged to them, with a lavish, almost reckless, hand, and rearing your children amid the luxury of which you had maliciously deprived them. I have family pride enough to provide for your needful support, for I cannot see you suffer; so I will fit up Fernleigh Lodge for your use while you live, and settle upon you an annuity of two hundred pounds——” “Two hundred pounds!” interrupted Lady Linton, in a tone of horror. “Yes. With economy, that will be sufficient for your individual needs,” replied Sir William, coldly. “I will give Lillian as much more until her marriage, when I shall hope to add something to the sum.” His sister’s face was almost convulsed with rage at this announcement. She had never imagined any descent in the world so dreadful as this. She had spent three times the amount now offered her in a single year upon her own wardrobe, and now she was expected to provide her whole support out of two hundred pounds. “Do you suppose Lillian and I are going to be able to live on a paltry sum like that?” she demanded, with quivering lips. “My wife and child lived on far less than that for years, after you succeeded in ruining her faith in me,” was the stern response. “It was no sum settled outright upon her, either; she had to _toil_ for it with her own hands. She was not only the provider for the household, but nurse, and governess, and seamstress as well; while _your_ children had their maids and tutors, to say nothing of the bills which I have paid sewing-girls and milliners for them. We will reverse the order for a while, and the sum that I have named will have to answer your purpose, unless your fertile brain can invent some way to increase it.” Lady Linton groaned at this inflexible verdict, while she writhed beneath his cutting words as if under a lash. She could no longer shine in society, for there would be no means for providing the necessary accessories—dresses, jewels, laces, and the hundred other things she so dearly loved and had always had for the simple asking. Her brilliant daughter, too, who had been so admired in the gay circles they had frequented, would have to drop out of her orbit now and be forgotten, while there would be no opportunity for her to make a distinguished marriage, which had been the acme of her mother’s ambition. “What will the world think? William, how can you be so cruel? It will blight all Lillian’s prospects,” she sobbed.