Her mother had seldom mentioned Miss Day to her, but from her Aunts
Adelaide and Lora she had heard of her many acts of cruelty and injustice
to the little motherless girl committed to her care.

"I was Miss Day; I'm Mrs. Gibson now. I was a little hard on your mother
sometimes, as I see you've been told; but I'd a great deal to bear; for
they were a proud, haughty family--those Dinsmores. I was not treated as
one of themselves, but as a sort of upper servant, though a lady by
birth, breeding and education," the woman remarked, her tone growing more
and more bitter as she proceeded.

"But was it right? was it just and generous to vent your anger upon a poor
little innocent girl who had no mother and no father there to defend her?"
asked the child, her soft eyes rilling with tears.

"Well maybe not; but it's the way people generally do. Your mother was a
good little thing, provokingly good sometimes; pretty too, and heiress,
they said, to an immense fortune. Is she rich still? or did she lose it
all by the war?"

"She did not lose it all, I know," said Elsie, "but how rich she is I do
not know; mamma and papa seldom talk of any but the true riches."

"Just like her, for all the world!" muttered the woman. Then aloud and
sneeringly, "Pray what do you mean by the true riches?"

"Those which can never be taken from us; treasure laid up in heaven where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and thieves break not through to
steal."