le as you can never do if
rich. People are your friends from pure friendship and love, not from
sponging self-interestedness. It is worth being poor once or twice in a
lifetime just to experience the blessing and heartrestfulness of a little
genuine reality in the way of love and friendship. Not that it is
impossible for opulence to have genuine friends, but rich people, I fear,
must ever have at their heart cankering suspicion to hint that the
friendship and love lavished upon them is merely self-interestedness and
sham, the implements of trade used by the fawning toadies who swarm
around wealth.

In conjunction with the bishop's name, the approaching sale of our goods
had been duly advertised in the local papers, and my father received
several letters of sympathy from the clergy deploring the conduct of the
bishop. These letters were from men unknown to father, who were unaware
that Richard Melvyn was being sold off for a debt already paid.

By the generosity of relatives and the goodness of neighbours as kind as
ever breathed, our furniture was our own again, but what were we to do
for a living? Our crops were withering in the fields for want of rain,
and we had but five cows--not an over-bright outlook. As I was getting to
bed one night my mother came into my room and said seriously, "Sybylla, I
want to have a talk with you."

"Talk away," I responded rather sullenly, for I expected a long sing-song
about my good-for-nothingness in general--a subject of which I was
heartily tired.

"Sybylla, I've been studying the matter over a lot lately. It's no use,
we cannot afford to keep you at home. You'll have to get something to
do."

I made no reply, and my mother continued, "I am afraid we will have to
break up the home altogether. It's no use; your father has no idea of
making a living. I regret the day I ever saw him. Since he has taken to
drink he has no more idea of how to make a living than a cat. I will have
to give the little ones to some of the relatives; the bigger ones will
have to go out to service, and so will your father and I. That's all I
can see ahead of us. Poor little Gertie is too young to go out in the
world (she was not twelve months younger than I); she must go to your
grandmother, I think."

I still made no reply, so my mother inquired, "Well, Sybylla, what do you
think of the matter?"

"Do you think it absolutely necessary to break up the home?" I said.

"Well, you suggest something bette