and offers
you a fair number of holidays, and what he will give you is equal to
20 pounds. That is a lot in these times, when he could easily get so many
better girls than you are in every way for half the money, and make your
father pay the interest, and thereby be 10 pounds in pocket. You will have
to help Mrs M'Swat with the work and sewing; but that will do you good,
and I hope you will try hard to give every satisfaction. I have also
written to your grandmother.

That letter wiped away ever vestige of my appetite for the dainties
before me. M'Swat's! Send--me--to M'Swat's! I could not believe it! It
must be a nightmare! M'Swat's!

Certainly, I had never been there; but all those who had gave graphic
descriptions of the total ignorance of Mrs M'Swat. Why, the place was
quite tabooed on account of its squalor and dirt!

The steel of my mother's letter entered my soul. Why had she not
expressed a little regret at the thing she was imposing on me? Instead,
there was a note of satisfaction running through her letter that she was
able to put an end to my pleasant life at Caddagat. She always seemed to
grudge me any pleasure. I bitterly put it down as accruing from the curse
of ugliness, as, when mentioning Gertie, it was ever, "I have let Gertie
go to such and such an entertainment. We could not very well afford it,
but the poor little girl does not have many pleasures for her years." I
was smaller than Gertie, and only eleven months older; but to me it was
"You must think of something besides pleasure."

The lot of ugly girls is not joyful, and they must be possessed of
natures very absurdly sanguine indeed ever to hope for any enjoyment in
life.

It was cruel, base, horrible of my mother to send me to M'Swat's. I would
not go--not for 50 pounds a day! I would not go! I would not! not for any
consideration.

I stamped about in a fever of impatience until grannie appeared, when I
handed both letters to her, and breathlessly awaited her verdict.

"Well, child, what do you say?"

"Say? I won't go! I can't! I won't! Oh, grannie, don't send me there--I
would rather die."

"My dear child, I would not he willing to part with you under any
circumstances, but I cannot interfere between a mother and her child. I
would not have allowed any one to do it with me, and believe in acting
the same towards any other mother, even though she is my own daughter.
However, there is time to get a reply before you would have to sta