"We are children of the same parents, for you are the only mother I can remember," he said to her. "Do not let them think that Fortune has made any difference in the shares she has severally allotted to us. Why should they know? I am not likely to marry for years and years to come, if ever, and what would my home be, without the girls and you?"

So it was Dick's doing that Gertrude first listened in such amazement to Pauline Tindall's sympathetic remarks, and then insisted on an explanation.

"Then, from what you tell me, I am to understand that my sisters and I are to a great extent dependent on Richard. That, but for him, we must live in some little poky place with one, or at most two servants, if indeed we could afford so much. That I, but for my—" she had always said brother before—"stepbrother's generosity—is that the right word, Pauline?—would have to go out as a governess, or companion, or something of the kind."

"I did not say so, dear Gertrude. I never dreamed of such a thing. I only alluded to what I thought you knew as well as myself. Mr. Richard is good and generous, splendidly generous. Everybody says so, and I should think that the very fact of your having no knowledge of what he has done, will show you what a delicate mind he must have."

There was a hard, set look on Gertrude's face as she answered, "True, Pauline, you said nothing of the going out as a governess, or the consequences which might follow if Richard Whitmore were to marry. But you showed me plainly enough that, were he to bring home a wife, there would no longer be room for the rest of us under his roof. The remainder of the blanks were easy to fill in, and my imagination did that quickly enough."

Again Pauline spoke soothingly and tenderly to her friend. She felt that she had unwittingly done mischief, and was distressed beyond measure at the impression produced on Gertrude. She pleaded again that she could not have imagined that she was touching on a forbidden subject, when it was one so well-known. That it was her own enthusiastic admiration for Mere Side, which had made her express what would be her feelings were she in Gertrude's place, at the very possibility of having to leave it.

Then she added, "Knowing how often you have spoken of your brother in such affectionate terms, and that he is honoured and respected by everyone, I thought you would love to know how his beautiful unselfishness is spoken of."

"I suppose I should appreciate it too in somebody else," replied Gertrude, trying to repress her angry feelings, or to prevent their being noticed. "But it has been a rude awakening for me. I have lived in a dream of comforts, luxuries, beautiful surroundings, to a share of which I thought I had as good a personal right as anyone who enjoyed them with me. I have been shaken out of my pleasant sleep to find that I can claim only a share in a mere pittance, and that I am a species of genteel pauper—a dependant on the charity of my stepbrother."

Poor Pauline! She attempted no further explanations. She was a little, tender, clinging creature, but withal an enthusiastic admirer of all that was generous or noble. Richard Whitmore's had seemed to her one of the most beautiful and unselfish of characters—a hero to be worshipped, though he was not externally suggestive of one.

Now she had done harm, both to Gertrude and to him. She was overwhelmed with distress, and, unable to think of anything else to say or do, she sat down and cried bitterly.