ivid red; it then went white, so ghastly white that the
girl might have been going to faint. All this took place in less than
a minute. At the end of that time Maggie was her old disdainful, angry
self once more.

"You must be very glad," she said. "You have me in your power at last.
My stepfather is a grocer. He keeps a shop at Shepherd's Bush. He is
one of the most horribly vulgar men that ever lived. Had I been at
home my mother would not have consented to marry him. But my mother,
although pretty and refined-looking, and in herself a lady, has little
force of character, and she was quite alone and very poor indeed. You,
who don't know the meaning of the word 'poor,' cannot conceive what it
meant to her. Little Merry guessed--dear, dear little Merry; but as to
you, you think when you subscribe to this charity and the other, you
think when you adopt an East End child and write letters to her, and
give of your superabundance to benefit her, that you understand the
poor. I tell you you _don't_! Your wealth is a curse to you, not a
blessing. You no more understand what people like mother and like
myself have lived through than you understand what the inhabitants of
Mars do--the petty shifts, the smallnesses, the queer efforts to make
two ends meet! You in your lovely home, and surrounded by lovely
things, and your aunt so proud of you--how _can_ you understand what
lodgings in the hot weather in Shepherd's Bush are like? Mother
understood--never any fresh air, never any tempting food; Tildy, that
poor little faithful girl as servant--slavey was her right name; Tildy
at every one's beck and call, always with a smut on her cheek, and her
hair so untidy, and her little person so disreputable; and mother
alone, wondering how she could make two ends meet. Talk of your
knowing what the poor people in my class go through!"

"I don't pretend that I do know, Maggie," said Aneta, who was
impressed by the passion and strength of Maggie's words. "I don't
pretend it for a moment. The poverty of such lives is to me a sealed
book. But--forgive me--if you are so poor, how could you come here?"

"I don't mind your knowing everything now," said Maggie. "I am
disgraced, and nothing will ever get me out of my trouble. I am up to
my neck, and I may as well drown at once; but Mrs. Ward--she
understood what a poor girl whose father was a gentleman could feel,
and she--oh, she was good!--she took me for so little that mother
could afford it.