"There, that will do, Anne. I am a Carew, and I don't want to be frightened into watching for a 'warning.' You are a Carew also, by the mother's side. Do you know, my poor child, that you are not left well off?"
"Yes; mamma has told me all. I don't mind."
"Don't mind!" echoed Selina, with another light laugh. "That's because you don't understand, Anne. What little your mamma had left has been sunk in an annuity for your education—eighty or a hundred pounds a year, until you are eighteen. There's something more, I believe, for clothes and incidental expenses."
"I said I did not mind, Selina, because I am not afraid of getting my own living. Mamma said that a young lady, well-educated and of good birth, can always command a desirable position as governess. She told me not to fear, for God would take care of me."
"Some money might be desirable for all that," returned my aunt, in a tone that sounded full of irreverence to my unaccustomed ears. "The maddest step Colonel Hereford ever took was that of selling out. He thought to better himself, and he spent and lost the money, leaving your mamma with very little when he died."
"I don't think mamma cared much for money, Selina."
"I don't think she did, or she would not have taken matters so quietly. Do you remember, Anne, how she used to go on at me when I said I should marry Edwin Barley?"
"Yes; mamma said how very wrong it would be of you to marry for money."
"Quite true. She used to put her hands to her ears when I said I hated him. Now, what are those earnest eyes of your searching me for?"
"Do you hate him, Selina?"