"You do not know what starving is, my dear."
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"I certainly shall not tell you a lie. Mr. Dalrymple has asked me to be his wife, and I have made him no answer. If he asks me again I shall accept him."

"Then I order you not to leave this house," said Mrs. Van Siever.

"Surely I may go to Mrs. Broughton?"

"I order you not to leave this house," said Mrs. Van Siever again,—and thereupon she stalked out of the dining-room and went upstairs. Clara had been standing with her bonnet on, ready dressed to go out, and the mother made no attempt to send the daughter up to her room. That she did not expect to be obeyed in her order may be inferred from the first words which she spoke to Mr. Musselboro. "She has gone off to that man now. You are no good, Musselboro, at this kind of work."

"You see, Mrs. Van, he had the start of me so much. And then being at the West End, and all that, gives a man such a standing with a girl!"

"Bother!" said Mrs. Van Siever, as her quick ear caught the sound of the closing hall-door. Clara had stood a minute or two to consider, and then had resolved that she would disobey her mother. She tried to excuse her own conduct to her own satisfaction as she went. "There are some things," she said, "which even a daughter cannot hear from her mother. If she chooses to close the door against me, she must do so."

She found Mrs. Broughton still in bed, and could not but agree with her mother that the woman was both silly and heartless.

"Your mother says that everything must be sold up," said Mrs. Broughton.

"At any rate you would hardly choose to remain here," said Clara.