benefactor COULD be that Camille?"

"Why? Because I was mad: because it is impossible; but I see my folly. I
am going in."

"What! don't you care to know who I think it was, perhaps?"

"No," said Josephine sadly and doggedly; she added with cold
nonchalance, "I dare say time will show." And she went slowly in, her
hand to her head.

"Her birthday!" sighed Rose.

The donor, whoever he was, little knew the pain he was inflicting on
this distressed but proud family, or the hard battle that ensued
between their necessities and their delicacy. The ten gold pieces were
a perpetual temptation: a daily conflict. 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