l that you are too young to
feel these troubles!'

'Papa! letter!' cried Kitty, waving the unregarded letter in the
triumph of discovery.

'The Reverend James Frost.' It was the writing formed by his own
copies, which he could not see without a sharp pang of self-reproach
for cruel injustice and unkindness.

Kitty slid down with the empty envelope to act reading to the twins,
whom she caught by turns as they crawled away, and set up straight
before her. Her operations and their remonstrances, though as loud as
they were inarticulate, passed utterly unheard and unheeded by their
father, as he read:--

'Hotel du Grand Monarque. Aix-la-Chapelle,
Sept. 18th.

'My Dearest James,--As a mere matter of honesty and justice, I may
venture to write to you. You always accepted from dear grandmamma the
income from the money in the Stocks. I did not know that half of it
has since come to me, till Lord Ormersfield paid me this last year's
dividend; and if you will not have his enclosed cheque for it, put it
in the fire, for I will never have it in any form. It is not my
uncle's, but my own; and if you would make me very happy, write to me
here. You must not suppose that I am trying to buy a letter; but I
look on this as yours, and I thought you had it till Lord Ormersfield
told me about it. We met him and Louis quite unexpectedly--the best
thing that has happened to me for years, though they told me much that
grieves me exceedingly--but I cannot write about it till I know that I
may. Tell me of dear Isabel and the babes. My heart yearns after
them! it would leap up at the sight of a stone from the Terrace!

'Your ever affectionate
'Clara.'

His first impulse was, as though he feared to repent, to turn to his
desk, the tears of feeling still in his eyes, and dash off these
words:--

'Your bounty, my dearest sister, is scarcely less welcome than the
forgiving spirit which prompted it. I will not conceal that I was
sorely in need of means to supply Isabel with the comforts that she
requires. That your affection can survive my treatment last year,
makes me equally grateful to you and ashamed of what then took place.'

He scarcely dared to look upon those phrases. Great as were his needs,
and kindly as the proffer was made, it was new and painful to him to be
under any such obligatio