“Well, once upon a time I lived very happily with my father in a little rectory in a little town near the Hudson River.  His family had been ruined by the war, and when the plantation was sold, or allowed to go derelict, whatever money came from it went to his elder and only brother.  My father was a dreamy scholar and not a business man as his brother seems to have been.  My mother had died when I was a child; I do not remember her.  My father was the kindest and most patient of men, and all I know he taught me.  We were very poor, and I undertook the duties of housekeeper, which I performed as well as I was able, constantly learning by my failures.  But my father was so indifferent to material comforts that there were never any reproaches.  He taught me all that I know in the way of what you might call accomplishments, and they were of a strangely varied order—­ a smattering of Latin and Greek, a good deal of French, history, literature, and even dancing, as well as music, for he was an excellent musician.  Our meager income ceased with my father’s life, and I had to choose what I should do to earn my board and keep, like Orphant Annie, in Whitcomb Riley’s poem.  There appeared to be three avenues open to me.  I could be a governess, domestic servant, or dressmaker.  I had already earned something at the latter occupation, and I thought if I could set up in business for myself, there was a greater chance of gaining an independence along that line than either as a governess or servant.  But to do this I needed at least a little capital.

“Although there had been no communication between the two brothers for many years, I had my uncle’s address, and I wrote acquainting him with the fact of my father’s death, and asking for some assistance to set up in business for myself, promising to repay the amount advanced with interest as soon as I was able, for although my father had never said anything against his elder brother, I somehow had divined, rather than knew, that he was a hard man, and his answering letter gave proof of that, for it contained no expression of regret for his brother’s death.  My uncle declined to make the advance I asked for, saying that many years before he had given my father two hundred dollars which had never been repaid.  I was thus compelled, for the time at least, to give up my plan for opening a dressmaking establishment, even on the smallest scale, and was obliged to take a situation similar to that which I hold here.  In three years I was able to save the two hundred dollars, which I sent to my uncle, and promised to remit the interest if he would tell me the age of the debt.  He replied giving the information, and enclosing a receipt for the principal, with a very correct mathematical statement of the amount of interest if compounded annually, as was his legal right, but expressing his readiness to accept simple interest, and give me a receipt in full.”

“The brute!” ejaculated Katherine, which remark brought upon her a mild rebuke from her mother on intemperance of language.