To John her white face, irradiated with gleams of the soft firelight, was as the face of an angel, and for a time he kept silence before her, then suddenly exclaimed: "Anna, you are good, and so was she, so good, so pure, so artless, and that made it hard to leave her, to give her up.

Anna, do you know what my mother wrote me?
Listen, while I tell, then see if she is not to blame.

She cruelly reminded me that by my father's will all of us, save you, were wholly dependent upon her, and said the moment I threw myself away upon a low, vulgar, penniless girl, that moment she'd cast me off, and I might earn my bread and hers as best I could.

She said, too, my sisters, Anna and all, sanctioned what she wrote, and your opinion had more weight than all the rest." "Oh, John, mother could not have so misconstrued my words.

Surely my note explained--I sent one in mother's letter." "It never reached me," John said, while Anna sighed at this proof of her mother's treachery.
Always conciliatory, however, she soon remarked: "You are sole male heir to the Richards name.