I surveyed her with flashing eyes.  “Such advice,” I retorted, “falls but poorly from your lips, Evelyn Erle, whom my mistaken father dubbed ‘propriety personified.’  One woman should feel for another’s wounded delicacy, even if a stranger; but, when it comes to sisters, O Evelyn!”

“And such insolence falls very absurdly from you, Miriam Monfort, under the circumstances.  Sisters, indeed!” she sneered.  “It was a claim you repudiated once!” and, with a sweeping bow, she left me, to repeat “sisters, indeed!” in my bitter solitude.

What were these circumstances to which she so haughtily referred?  With my heavy head resting on my weary hands, I sat and contemplated them—­ay, looked them fully in the face!  Outwardly, matters stood just as they had ever done.

The same circle of servants—­of acquaintances—­revolved around us.  The house was unchanged, the living identically the same, even to the one bottle of fine wine per day, carefully withdrawn from the cobwebbed cellar by Morton, and as carefully decanted for our table.

But this alone, of all the viands set before us, was furnished at my expense.  My own small hoard of silverpieces had, it is true, from the time of our ruin, more than sufficed for my absolute wants and Mabel’s, confined, as they were, to mere externals of necessary dress; but all other outlay, even to the payment of Mabel’s masters (I taught her chiefly myself, however), was met by Evelyn.

We, the children of a proud man, were dependent on strangers.  Look upon it as I would, the revolting fact stared me out of countenance.  Charity, the chambermaid, had more right to lift an opposing front to Evelyn than I had; for she earned the bread she ate, while I—­there was no use concealing the mortifying truth any longer—­served the apprenticeship of pauperdom!

True, the house was legally mine—­the furniture I used, the plate I was served from, the carriage I occasionally drove out in, were all my own possessions—­though, with a slow and moth-like process, I was gradually consuming these.  For, at my majority, it was my determination to pay for my support in the intervening years, even if I sacrificed every thing in order to wipe out obligations.  Ay, the very corn my horses were eating (what mockery to keep them at all!) was now furnished by another, and must eventually be paid for, with interest.

Then, how would it fare with me, beggared indeed?  I would take time by the forelock; I would begin at once.

“Evelyn,” I had said, not long after the conversation reverted to, “is there no way in which my property may be fixed, so as to leave the principal untouched, and still yield an income sufficient for my support, and that of Mabel?  The bread of dependence is very bitter to me.”

“I ate it long,” she said, “and found it passing sweet.  You are only receiving back the payment for an old debt, Miriam.  Your father’s lavish generosity can never be repaid, even to his children, by me, who was so long its happy recipient.”