"You used not to be so hard-hearted.

A soldier, an old comrade of your husband's, wounded and sick, and you alone never go to him, to console him with a word of sympathy or encouragement." Josephine looked at her mother with a sort of incredulous stare.

Then, after a struggle, she replied with a tone and manner so spiteful and icy that it would have deceived even us who know her had we heard it.

"He has plenty of nurses without me." She added, almost violently, "My husband, if he were wounded, would not have so many, perhaps not have one." With this she rose and went out, leaving them aghast.

She sat down in the passage on a window-seat, and laughed hysterically.