"I'm real sorry for you, but you have had a good day and a fine education, and I suppose ye have gran' acquaintance?"
"Yes, I have some friends."
"And ye have plans, maybe?"
"Yes; I shall remain with Mrs. Melville for a time, and then join my own family in India."
"Oh, so you are an Indian!" exclaimed Mrs. Gowdy. "Well, to think of that, now, and you so fair! Mrs. James, I've always heard, was awfu' swarthy."
"My parents are English. I was brought home when I was quite small."
"Aye, aye; so ye were," assented her visitor. "I mind it all. Mr. Middlemass has been talking to me, and he wants us to make you an allowance. But you have your own folk, and I see no call to that!" Verona was about to speak. "Whist, now," interrupted her visitor, "of course your clothes and jewels and presents are your own." Then she paused and added: "Mrs. James Gowdy had gran' gowns and laces and diamonds, and her belongings will be coming to me." Verona assented with a bow. "I've agreed to pay your passage out, and give you three hundred pounds."
Verona could not immediately trust her voice. She would have rejoiced to decline this liberal charity, but was keenly aware that it would be her sole means of joining her parents.
Should she refuse the dole? "No," urged common-sense, "accept the crumb." And again she bowed in acquiescence.
Maggie, who had never once opened her lips, sat glowering at this English girl with a gaze of hard enmity, endeavouring to impress on her memory her manner of doing her hair, of moving, speaking and looking. Yes, she might for all the world be some great lady, and yet she was nothing but a beggar, on whom her mother had just bestowed a fortune.