“That is true, but I never mean to bring my children up in such a way that they will be no use anywhere, and no one will want them.”

“Well, I don’t see any other way than bringing Annette here.”

“Well, if I must, I must,” she said with an air of despondency.

Dr. Harcourt rode over to his sister’s where Annette was spending the day and brought the doubly orphaned girl to his home.  As she entered the room, it seemed as though a chill struck to her heart when her Aunt bade her good morning.  There was no warm pressure in the extended hand.  No loving light in the cold unsympathizing eyes which seemed to stab her through and through.  The children eyed her inquisitively, as if wishing to understand her status with their parents before they became sociable with her.  After supper Annette’s uncle went out and her aunt sat quietly and sewed till bed time, and then showed Annette to her room and left the lonely girl to herself and her great sorrow.  Annette sat silent, tearless, and alone.  Grief had benumbed her faculties.  She had sometimes said when grandmother had scolded her that “she was growing cross and cold.”  But oh, what would she not have given to have had the death-created silence broken by that dear departed voice, to have felt the touch of a vanished hand, to have seen again the loving glance of the death darkened eye.  But it was all over; no tears dimmed her eye, as she sat thinking so mournfully of her great sorrow, till she unfastened from her neck a little keepsake containing a lock of grandmother’s hair, then all the floodgates of her soul were opened and she threw herself upon her bed and sobbed herself to sleep.  In the morning she awoke with that sense of loss and dull agony which only they know, who have seen the grave close over all they have held dearest on earth.  The beautiful home of her uncle was very different from the humble apartments; here she missed all the freedom and sunshine that she had enjoyed beneath the shelter of her grandmother’s roof.

“Can you sew?” said her aunt to Annette, as she laid on the table a package of handkerchiefs.

“Yes ma’m.”

“Let me see how you can do this,” handing her one to hem.  Annette hemmed the handkerchief nicely; her aunt examined it, put it down and gave her some others to hem, but there was no word of encouragement for her, not even a pleasant, “well done.”  They both relapsed into silence; between them there was no pleasant interchange of thought.  Annette was tolerated and endured, but she did not feel that she was loved and welcomed.  It was no place to which she could invite her young friends to spend a pleasant evening.  Once she invited some of her young friends to her home, but she soon found that it was a liberty which she should be careful never to repeat.  Soon after Annette came to live with her aunt her aunt’s mother had a social gathering and reunion of the members of her family.  All Dr. Harcourt’s children were invited, from the least to the greatest, but poor Annette was left behind.  Mrs. Lasette, who happened in the house the evening before the entertainment, asked, “Is not Annette going?” when Mrs. Harcourt replied, very coldly, “She is not one of the family,” referring to her mother’s family circle.