"It is for your good, Meg, that I speak," resumed the young man. "You must wish to be like your mother; and you cannot grow up good and hard-working and honest if you think your mother was rich and left you poor, with no one to look after you or care for you."
"It was not her fault," said the child faintly.
"It would have been her fault," he answered severely, shaking his head. "My dear Meg, put away this foolish idea. Call up your mother to your mind as a good, toiling woman; one of God's ladies, as I called her before. Try to be like her. Lay aside the thought that she was one of those carriage ladies."
"I won't!" interrupted the child, standing pale and upright, clutching the fashion-plate close up against her chest. "It's a lie! She was a lady!"
A smothered exclamation rose to Mr. Standish's lips. It was the first offensive word he had heard the child use.
"Meg," he cried, following the fluttering little figure up the stairs.
He saw her enter an attic; he heard the door slam and the bolt drawn.
"Meg," he called again gently.
There came no answer; but Mr. Standish thought he heard the sound of passionate sobbing. He waited, called a third time, and receiving no response he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.