"How can you be so unkind, so cruel?
Leave me--you and papa both?
Why, I shall die! Of course I shall die, all alone in this great house.
I thought you loved me!" and she burst into tears, half of anger, half of grief, and sobbed bitterly.
"Dear child!" said Mrs.Graham, smoothing the fair hair lovingly, "if you had heard me out, you would have seen that we had no idea of leaving you alone, or of leaving you in this house either.

You are to stay with--" "Not with Aunt Emily!" cried the girl, springing to her feet with flashing eyes.

"Mamma, I would rather beg in the streets than stay with Aunt Emily.

She is a detestable, ill-natured, selfish woman." "Hildegarde," said Mrs.Graham gravely, "be silent!" There was a moment of absolute stillness, broken only by the ticking of the little crystal clock on the mantelpiece, and then Mrs.Graham continued: "I must ask you not to speak again, my daughter, until I have finished what I have to say; and even then, I trust you will keep silence until you are able to command yourself.

You are to stay with my old nurse, Mrs.Hartley, at her farm near Glenfield.