er
limbs trembled and threatened to give way.

She folded her arms on her lap, and leaned forward, with her eyes
on the ground.

"A charity girl! Only a charity girl!"

She said the words to herself again and again. Her eyes burnt; a
spray hung on her eyelids. Her lips were contracted with pain,
spasms ran through her breast.

"Only a charity girl! She'd never, never a'sed that had she loved
me. She don't." Then came a sob. Mehetabel tried to check it, but
could not, and the sound of that sob passed through the house.
It was followed by no other.

The girl recovered herself, leaned back against the wall, and
looked at the twilight sky.

There was no night now. The season was near midsummer:--

"Barnaby bright,
All day and no night."

Into the luminous blue sky Mehetabel looked steadily, and did
battle with her own self in her heart.

That which had been said so shortly was true; had it been wrapped
up in filagree--through all disguise the solid unpleasant truth
would remain as core. If that were true, then why should she be
so stung by the few words that contained the truth?

It was not the words that had hurt her--she had heard them often
at school--it was that "Mother" had said them. It was the way in
which they had been uttered.

Mrs. Verstage had ever been kind to the girl; more affectionate
when she was quite a child than when she became older. Gradually
the hostess had come to use her, and using her as a servant, to
regard her in that light.

Susanna Verstage was one of those women to whom a baby is almost
a necessity, certainly a prime element of happiness. As she
philosophically put it, "Men likes 'baccy; wimin likes babies;
they was made so;" but the passion for a baby was doubly strong
in the heart of the landlady. As long as Mehetabel was entirely
dependent, the threads that held her to the heart of the hostess
were very strong, and very many, but so soon as she became
independent, these threads were relaxed. The good woman had a
blunt and peremptory manner, and she at times ruffled the girl by
sharpness of rebuke; but never previously had she alluded to her
peculiar position and circumstances in such a galling manner.

Why had she done this now? Why gone out of her way to do so?

Mehetabel thought how wonderful it was that she, a stranger,
should be in that house, treated almost, though not wholly, as
its child, whereas the son of the house was shut out from
it,--that against him o