"Dear child!" she continued tenderly, after a pause; "the only bit of
money she has yet spent for herself was to get the spring outfits that
she and Betty have really needed for some time, but for which they did
not like to use their father's money.

"And I do believe," after another pause, "that the two girls' lives will
be passed as unostentatiously as if the money had not come to them."

"Why do you speak as if the money had come to both?" asked Miss
Sherman, with a curious inflection of the voice.

"Did I? I did not realize it. But I will not change my words; for,
unless I mistake much, the money will be Bettina's as much as Barbara's,
and this, because Barbara will have it so."

The words were hardly spoken by Mrs. Douglas when Mr. Sumner, who was
riding backward and so facing the following carriage, sprang up, crying
in a low, smothered tone of alarm, "Barbara!"

But Mrs. Douglas had not time to turn before he sank back saying:
"Excuse me. I must have been mistaken. I thought that something was the
matter; that Barbara had been taken ill."

Then he added, in explanation to his sister: "The carriage was so far
back, as it rounded a curve, permitting me to look into it, that I could
not see very distinctly."

Miss Sherman bit her lip and rode on in silence. Mr. Sumner's concern
for Barbara seemed painfully evident to her. She had much that was