became more valuable day by day. But no one now loved Lydia, not even
old Mrs. Bell, and certainly she loved nobody. Of course the natural
consequences followed--the woman, loving neither God nor man, grew
harder and harder. At forty-five, the age she was when the children
came to Warren's Grove, she was a very hard woman indeed.

It would be wrong, however, to say that she had _no_ love; she
loved one thing--a base thing--she loved money. Lydia Purcell was
saving money; in her heart she was a close miser.

She was not, however, dishonest; she had never stolen a penny in her
life, never yet. Every farthing of the gains which came in from the
well-stocked and prosperous little farm she sent to the county bank,
there to accumulate for that son in Australia, who, childless as he
was, would one day return to find himself tolerably rich. But still
Lydia, without being dishonest, saved money. When old Mrs. Bell, a
couple of years after her grandchild's death, had a paralytic stroke,
and begged of her faithful Lydia, her dear Lydia, not to leave her,
but to stay and manage the farm which she must give up attending to,
Lydia had made a good compact for herself.

"I will stay with you, Mistress Bell," she had replied, addressing
the old dame in the fashion she loved. "I will stay with you, and
tend you, and work your farm, and you shall pay me my wages."

"And good wages, Lydia--good wages they must be," replied the old
lady.

"They shall be fair wages," answered Lydia. "You shall give me a
salary of fifty pounds a year, and I will have in the spring every