Mildred dropped the subject. She took a ring from her purse, an emerald set round with pearls, and put it into Betsey's hand.
"It was my mother's," she said, "and I brought it for you. She had two of these rings just alike; one of them had belonged to a sister of hers who died. I wear the other—see! My mother was very poor, Betsey, or she might have left something worth the acceptance of you, her goddaughter."
Betsey Travice burst into tears, partly at the kind words, partly at the munificence of the gift, for she had never possessed so much as a brass ring in all her life.
"It is too good for me," she said; "I ought not to take it from you. I would not, but for your having one like it. What have I done that you should all be so kind to me? But I will never part with the ring."
And, indeed, the contrast between the kindness to her of the Arkells generally and the unfeeling behaviour of her sister Charlotte, could but mark its indelible trace on even the humble mind of Betsey Travice.
"Has Charlotte come home?" she asked.
"Have you heard from her?" exclaimed Mildred in astonishment. "She came home before I left Westerbury."
Betsey shook her head. "We are not to keep up any correspondence; Charlotte said it would not do; that our paths in life lay apart; hers up in the world, mine down; and she did not care to own me for a sister. Of course I know I am inferior to Charlotte, and always have been; but still——"
Betsey broke down. The grieved heart was full.