After all he had left them just enough to live upon.

Nelly's conscience, grown tenderer than of old under the touch of joy, pricked her as she thought of her father.

She knew he had loved her best of his two daughters.

She would always remember his last lingering hand-clasp, always be thankful for his last few words--'God bless you, dear.' But had she cared for him enough in return ?--had she really tried to understand him?
Some vague sense of the pathos of age--of its isolation--its dumb renouncements--gripped her.

If he had only lived longer! He would have been so proud of George.
She roused herself.
'You did really make up your mind--_then_ ?' she asked him, just for the pleasure of hearing him confess it again.
'Of course I did! But what was the good ?' She knew that he meant it had been impossible to speak while his mother was still alive, and he, her only child, was partly dependent upon her.
But his mother had died not long after Nelly's father, and her little income had come to her son.