oved immediately,--just as
soon as Julius came here as master."

"My house in the village has been empty for three years. It is cold and
damp. It needs attention of every kind. If we could only stay here until
Stephen's house was finished: then you could be married."

"O mother dear, that is not possible! You know Steve and I cannot marry
until father has been dead at least a year. It would be an insult to
father to have a wedding in his mourning year."

"If your father knows any thing, Charlotte, he knows the trouble we are
in. He would count it no insult."

"But all through the Dales it would be a shame to us. Steve and I would
not like to begin life with the ill words or ill thoughts of our
neighbors."

"What shall I do? Charlotte, dear, what shall I do?"

"Let us go to our own home. Better to brave a little damp and discomfort
than constant humiliation."

"This is my home, my own dear home! It is full of memories of your
father and Harry."

"O mother, I should think you would want to forget Harry!"

"No, no, no! I want to remember him every hour of the day and night. How
could I pray for him, if I forgot him? Little you know how a mother
loves, Charlotte. His father forgave him: shall I be less pitiful?--I,
who nursed him at my breast, and carried him in my arms."

Charlotte did not answer. She was touched by her mother's fidelity, and
she found in her own heart a feeling much akin to it. Their conversation
reverted to their unhappy position, and to the difficulty of making an
immediate change. For not only was the dower-house in an untenantable
state, but the weather was very much against them. The gray weather, the
gloomy sky, the monotonous rains, the melting snow, the spiteful east
wind,--by all this enmity of the elements, as well as by the enmity in
the household, the poor bereaved lady was saddened and controlled.

The wretched conversation was followed by a most unhappy silence. Both
hearts were brooding over their slights and wrongs. Day by day
Charlotte's life had grown harder to bear. Sophia's little flaunts and
dissents, her astonishments and corrections, were almost as cruel as the
open hatred of Julius, his silence, his lowering brows, and insolence
of proprietorship. To these things she had to add the intangible
contempt of servants, and the feeling of constraint in the house where
she had been the beloved child and the one in authority. Also she found
the insolence which Stephen had to b