isters and one brother.
The brother early went West and disappeared out of their lives, and the
third sister married. This was years and years ago, when they were all
young. From this marriage sprang all their misfortune. The nephew which
this marriage introduced to their family became their bane as well
as their delight. From being a careless spendthrift boy he became a
reckless, scheming man, adding extravagance to extravagance, till, to
support him and meet his debts, these poor aunts gave up first their
luxuries, then their home and finally their very livelihood. Not that
they acknowledged this. The feeling they both cherished for him was
more akin to infatuation than to ordinary family love. They did not miss
their luxuries, they did not mourn their home, they did not even mourn
their privations; but they were broken-hearted and had been so for a
long time, because they could no longer do for him as of old. Shabby
themselves, and evidently ill-nourished, they grieved not over their own
changed lot, but over his. They could not be reconciled to his lack of
luxuries, much less to the difficulties in which he frequently found
himself, who was made to ruffle it with the best and be the pride of
their lives as he was the darling of their hearts. All this the poor
old things made apparent to me, but their story did not become really
interesting till they began to speak of this house we are in, and of
certain events which followed their removal to the ramshackle dwelling
next door. The sale of this portion of the property had relieved them
from their debts, but they were otherwise penniless, and were just
planning the renting of their rooms at prices which would barely serve
to provide them with a scanty living, when there came a letter from
their graceless nephew, asking for a large amount of money to save him
from complete disgrace. They had no money, and were in the midst of
their sorrow and perplexity, when a carriage drove up to the door of
this house and from it issued an old and very sick man, their long
absent and almost forgotten brother. He had come home to die, and when
told his sisters' circumstances, and how soon the house next door would
be filled with lodgers, insisted upon having this place of his birth,
which was empty at the time, opened for his use. The owner, after long
continued entreaties from the poor old sisters, finally consented to the
arrangement. A bed was made up in the library, and the old man