“What!”
“He does not want it himself, and he says that I can do with bread. Oh, I could if there were enough bread!”
“You poor, poor child! Why, it was Providence which sent me all the way from Tasmania to make you comfortable and to save the bit of life in your body.”
“Oh, I cannot—I cannot!” said Sylvia. Her composure gave way; she sank into a chair and burst into tears.
“You cannot what, you poor child?”
“Take everything from you. I—I am a lady. In reality we are rich—yes, quite rich—only father has a craze, and he won’t spend money. He hoards instead of spending. It began in mother’s lifetime, and he has got worse and worse and worse. They say it is in the family, and his father had it, and his father before him. When father was young he was extravagant, and people thought that he would never inherit the craze of a miser; but it has grown with his middle life, and if mother were alive now she would not know him.”
“And you are the sufferer, you poor lamb!”
“Yes; I get very hungry at times.”
“But, my dear, with twenty shillings a week you need not be hungry.”
“Oh no. I cannot realize it. But I have to be careful; father must not see any difference.”