‘Oh, mamma, do not say that!’

’But I do say it.  It is hard upon me.  I did think that you would try to comfort me after all this trouble with Felix.  But you are as bad as he is;—­or worse, for you have not been thrown into temptation like that poor boy!  And you will break your cousin’s heart.  Poor Roger!  I feel for him;—­he that has been so true to us!  But you think nothing of that.’

‘I think very much of my cousin Roger.’

’And how do you show it;—­or your love for me?  There would have been a home for us all.  Now we must starve, I suppose.  Hetta, you have been worse to me even...