"Look here, Charlotte," said she, "I'll do anything in the world I can to help you; I promise you that, and I mean it, honest." Charlotte reached around a hand, and clasped her cousin's.
"I'm sorry I spoke so," Rose said.
"Never mind," Charlotte responded, chokingly.

She sobbed a little longer from pure inertia of grief; then she raised herself, shaking off Rose's hand.

"It's all right," said she; "I needn't have minded; I know you didn't mean anything.

It was just--the last straw, and--when you said that about my wedding-clothes--" "Oh, Charlotte, you did speak about them yourself first," Rose said, deprecatingly.
"I did, so nobody else would," returned Charlotte.

She wiped her eyes, drooping her stained face away from her cousin with a kind of helpless shame; then she smoothed her hair with the palms of her hands.