grandmother's face. No one was ever pitiful to me; fierce words, fierce
blows, complaints of the burden I was; that was all my mother's mother
ever gave to me. I need not say that I hated her, and learned to loathe
the life I fain would have laid down. Do I tire you, Mr. Ford?"

"On the contrary, I am deeply interested," I replied.

She went on:

"My grandmother was not poor; she was greedy. She had a good income
which died with her, and she strongly objected to spend it on me. She
paid for my education on the condition that when I could get my own
living by teaching I should repay her. Thank Heaven, I did so!"

"Then you were a governess?" I said.

"Yes; I began to get my own living at fifteen. I was tall for my age,
and quite capable," she said; "but fifteen is very young, Mr. Ford, for
a girl to be thrown on to the world."

"You must have been a very beautiful girl," I said.

"Yes, so much the worse for me." She seemed to repent of the words as
soon as they were uttered.

"I mean," she added, quickly, "that my grandmother hated me the more for
it."

There was silence between us for some minutes, then she added: