ng more, and exclaimed:--

"There, there, Hazel! don't glower at me like that child! It's all your
fault; leaving me so short as you did for days and weeks together. Not
a shilling to call my own, and poor Percy always writing to me for new
clothes and pocket-money; and then things wanted to make the house tidy.
I was obliged to use the money; I don't know what I should have done
without it. You must pay it back out of your next quarter's salary; and
there: pray don't look at me like that. It's very dreadful to be
reduced to taking every penny from your own daughter, and--"

"Oh, mother, mother!" wailed Hazel; "say no more. What have you--have
you done?"

"What have I done? What was I to do? How can you be so foolish, Hazel?
Do you suppose I can keep up even so small an establishment as this
upon the wretched pittance you give me for housekeeping?"

Hazel gazed at her mother wonderingly, for the poor woman took hardly
any interest in the household management which fell almost entirely upon
her child, who found no little difficulty in keeping matters straight.
And now Mrs Thorne was seizing upon this as a reason for her
abstraction of the money; for she made no denial whatever, but, driven
to bay, haughtily acknowledged the fact.

"Then you really did take this money, mother?"

"Of course I did, Hazel. Why should I leave it when it was lying idly
there? It was absurd."

"But, my dear mother, the money was not mine."

"What nonsense, Hazel! What does it matter whether it was yours or not?
Money's money. The school people don't want you to give them the very
pennies that the children brought."

"No, mother; but they want the amount."

"Then give it to them, Hazel. My dear child, what a ridiculous fuss you
do make?"

"But, mother, do you not understand--do you not see that I have no
money, and no means of making it up?"

"Really, Hazel, you are too absurd," said Mrs Thorne with forced
levity. "What is the ridiculous amount?"

"Between twenty and thirty pounds."

"Absurd! Why, I have often given as much, or more, for a new dress.
There, get the money from the school people--Mr Lambent, Mr Burge, or
somebody--and pray do not bother me about it any more."

"Mother, dear mother," cried Hazel, "have you no thought? Tell me, have
you any of this money left?"

"Of course not, and I must beg of you not to address me in so
disrespectful a manner. It is a very good thing that your little
sisters a