The Ways of Desolation

"Anna, Anna, to think of our coming to this!" she would wail a dozen
times a day--or, "Anna, I can't stand it another minute," and she would
burst into paroxysms of grief, from which nothing could arouse her, and
utterly exhausted by her own emotions, which were chiefly regret and
self-pity, she would sink off to sleep. Anna had no difficulty in
accounting to her mother for the extra comforts with which Lennox
Sanderson's money supplied them. Mrs. Standish Tremont sometimes sent
checks and Mrs. Moore never bothered about the source, so long as the
luxuries were forthcoming.

"Is there no more Kumyss, Anna?" she asked one day.

"No, mother."

"Then why did you neglect to order it?"

The girl's face grew red. "There was no money to pay for it, mother.
I am so sorry."

"And does Frances Tremont neglect us in this way? When we were both
girls, it was quite the other way. My father practically adopted
Frances Tremont. She was married from our house. But you see, Anna,
she made a better marriage than I. Oh, why was your father so
reckless? I warned him not to speculate in the rash way he was
accustomed to doing, but he would never take my advice. If he had, we
would not be as we are now." And again the poor lady was overcome with
her own sorrows.