Page:The Semi-detached House.djvu/217

 me say what I think. Have you no nearer relations than an uncle and aunt?"

"I have no other relations whatever, my father and mother died before I was two years old, and I never had either brother or sister."

"That is sad," said the sisters, looking at each other, 'but still you have a home, and since you have no one else to look to, I suppose your uncle and aunt stand in the place of parents to you; could you not—" Janet stopped, she looked at the Baron and Baroness. It seemed really a waste of words to ask if anybody could love them.

"You are honest," said Rachel, with a hollow laugh, "I foresaw that that sentence could not come to a happy conclusion."

"But people say you are very rich," said Janet, "and just think what money can do for half the poor creatures in the world, and how soon you would attach yourself to any one whom you had relieved from real distress; I assure you, Rose and I are often inclined to cry because we can do so little for sick