."

"Well, I don't see any other way than bringing Annette here."

"Well, if I must, I must," she said with an air of despondency.

Dr. Harcourt rode over to his sister's where Annette was spending the
day and brought the doubly orphaned girl to his home. As she entered the
room, it seemed as though a chill struck to her heart when her Aunt bade
her good morning. There was no warm pressure in the extended hand. No
loving light in the cold unsympathizing eyes which seemed to stab her
through and through. The children eyed her inquisitively, as if wishing
to understand her status with their parents before they became sociable
with her. After supper Annette's uncle went out and her aunt sat quietly
and sewed till bed time, and then showed Annette to her room and left
the lonely girl to herself and her great sorrow. Annette sat silent,
tearless, and alone. Grief had benumbed her faculties. She had sometimes
said when grandmother had scolded her that "she was growing cross and
cold." But oh, what would she not have given to have had the
death-created silence broken by that dear departed voice, to have felt
the touch of a vanished hand, to have seen again the loving glance of
the death darkened eye. But it was all over; no tears dimmed her eye, as
she sat thinking so mournfully of her great sorrow, till she unfastened
from her neck a little keepsake containing a lock of grandmother's hair,
then all the floodgates of her soul were opened and she threw herself
upon her bed and sobbed herself to sleep. In the morning she awoke with
that sense of loss and dull agony which only they know, who have seen
the grave close over all they have held dearest on earth. The beautiful
home of her uncle was very different from the humble apartments; here
she missed all the freedom and sunshine that she had enjoyed beneath the
shelter of her grandmother's roof.

"Can you sew?" said her aunt to Annette, as she laid on the table a
package of handkerchiefs.

"Yes ma'm."

"Let me see how you can do this," handing her one to hem. Annette hemmed
the handkerchief nicely; her aunt examined it, put it down and gave her
some others to hem, but there was no word of encouragement for her, not
even a pleasant, "well done." They both relapsed into silence; between
them there was no pleasant interchange of thought. Annette was tolerated
and endured, but she did not feel that she was loved and welcomed. It
was no place to which she could invite her young