ation.

'Mother!' she exclaimed, 'why have you both insisted on keeping silence
before me about your difficulties? There was no kindness in it; you have
done me the cruelest wrong. Had I not money in plenty beyond what I
needed? What if the future be uncertain? Has not the present its claims,
and can your needs be separated from mine? Because you have succeeded in
keeping me apart from the troubles of your life, you--you and
father--have thought you had done a praiseworthy thing. Is it not bad
enough that one human being should be indifferent to the wants of
another, just because they call each other strangers? Was it right to
bring such a hateful spirit of independence into a home, between parents
and child? If the world is base and unjust, is not that a reason the
more why we should draw ever more closely to each other, and be to each
other all that our power allows? Independent! Because I earned money and
could support myself, you have told me I must be independent, and leave
you the same. That is the lesson that life has taught you. It is well to
have understanding for lessons of a deeper kind.'

'Well, my child,' protested the mother, to whom the general tenor of
such reasoning was well-nigh as dark as its special application, 'we
have always felt we were doing our duty to you. At your age it is only
right you should have your money for yourself; who knows when you may
want it? I don't think you should be angry with us, just because we've
felt we'd rather put up with a little hardship now and then than have
you feel some day we'd been a burden on you. I haven't complained, and
I'm not complaining now. I'm sorry I came to speak to you about such a
thing. It seems as if you could never take a thing as I mean it. It's
like the potatoes at dinner; I meant to do you a kindness by giving you
the choice, and you flew out as if you hadn't patience with me.'

Emily kept her eyes upon the window.

'How you can say,' went on Mrs. Hood, 'that we've been cruel to you and
done you a wrong--I know we've very different ways of looking at most
things, but where we've wronged you is more than I can understand.'

'You have taken from me,' replied Emily, without moving her eyes, 'the
power to help you. I might have done much, now I can do nothing; and
your loss is mine.'

'No, indeed, it isn't, and shan't be, Emily. Your father and I have
always said that one thing, that you shouldn't suffer by us. What did
your father always sa