The words that accompanied the donation offered a bait.

Their pride and dignity declined it; but these bright bits of gold cost them many a sharp pang.

You must know that Josephine and Rose had worn out their mourning by this time; and were obliged to have recourse to gayer materials that lay in their great wardrobes, and were older, but less worn.

A few of these gold pieces would have enabled the poor girls to be neat, and yet to mourn their father openly.

And it went through and through those tender, simple hearts, to think that they must be disunited, even in so small a thing as dress; that while their mother remained in her weeds, they must seem no longer to share her woe.
The baroness knew their feeling, and felt its piety, and yet could not bow her dignity to say, "Take five of these bits of gold, and let us all look what we are--one." Yet in this, as in everything else, they supported each other.