The big tears in her pathetic eyes tremble to their fall, she covers her face with her hands.
"Tell me everything," says Clarissa, tenderly.
"What is there to tell?—except that I am alone in the world, and very desolate. It is more than a year ago now since——since——papa left me. It seems like a long century. At first I was apathetic; it was despair I felt, I suppose; indeed, I was hardly conscious of the life I was leading when with my aunt. Afterwards the reaction set in; then came the sudden desire for change, the intense longing for work of any kind; and then——"
"Then you thought of me!" says Clarissa, pressing her hand.
"That is true. Then I thought of you, and how ready your sympathy had ever been. When—when he died, he left me a hundred pounds. It was all he had to leave." She says this hastily, passionately, as though it must be gone through, no matter how severe the pain that accompanies the telling of it. Clarissa, understanding, draws even closer to her. This gentle movement is enough. A heart, too full, breaks beneath affection's touch. Georgie bursts into tears.
"It was all on earth he had to give," she sobs, bitterly, "and I think he must have starved himself to leave me even that! Oh, shall I ever forget?"
"In time," whispers Clarissa, gently. "Be patient: wait." Then, with a sigh, "How sad for some this sweet world can be!"
"I gave my aunt forty pounds," goes on the fair-haired beauty, glad to find somebody in whom she can safely confide and to whom her troubles may be made known. "I gave it to her because I had lived with her some time, and she was not kind to me, and so I felt I should pay her something. And then I put a little white cross on his grave before I left him, lest he should think himself quite forgotten. It was all I could do for him," concludes she, with another heavy sob that shakes her slight frame.
Her heart seems broken! Clarissa, who by this time is dissolved in tears, places her arms round her, and presses her lips to her cheek.
"Try, try to be comforted," entreats she. "The world, they tell me, is full of sorrow. Others have suffered, too. And nurse used to tell me, long ago, that those who are unhappy in the beginning of their lives are lucky ever after. Georgie, it may be so with you."