hesitated, strained him a little closer in her embrace, and did
not answer directly.

"Father, I wish you would!"

"What folly are you talking, Dolly?" said Mr. Copley angrily. "You are
meddling with what you do not understand."

But Dolly only clung closer, and having once broken the ice would not
now give back. She must speak now.

"Father," she said, half sobbing, yet commanding the sobs down, "we are
getting ruined. We are losing each other. Mother and I live alone--we
do not see you--we are poor--we have not money to pay our dues--mother
is not getting better--and I am breaking my heart about her, and about
you. O father, let us come and live together again."

Dolly got no answer to this outburst, and hardly was conscious that she
got none, she was so eagerly trying to swallow down the emotion which
threatened to master her voice. Mr. Copley had no answer ready.

"Father," Dolly began again, "mother wants to travel; she wants to go
to Venice. Suppose we go?"

"Can't travel without money, Dolly. You say we haven't any."

"Would it cost more to travel than to live as we are living?"

"You say we cannot do that."

"Father, do _you_ say so?"

"I am merely repeating your statements, Dolly, to show you how like a
child you talk."

"Answer me as if I were a child then, father, and tell me what we can
do. But _don't_ let us go on living as we are doing!"

"I thought I had done the very best thing possible for your mother,
when I got her that place down at--I forget what's the name of the
place."

"Brierley."

"I thought I had done the very best thing for her, when I settled her
there. Now she is tired of it."

"But father, we cannot pay our way; and it worries her."

"She is always worrying about something or other. If it wasn't that, it
would be something else. Any man may be straightened for cash now and
then. It happens to everybody. It is nothing to make a fuss about."

"But, father, if I cannot pay the servants, _they_ must be without cash
too; and that is hard on poor people."

"Not half so hard as on people above them," replied her father hastily.
"They have ways and means; and they don't have a tenth or a hundredth
as many wants, anyhow."

"But those they have are wants of necessary things," urged Dolly.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" said Mr. Copley, with as much of
harshness in his manner as ever could come out towards Dolly. "I cannot
coin money for you, well as I would like to do