Star gave the woman a stare of blank astonishment. She had been most delicately and tenderly reared; her education had been carefully superintended by her father, and the constant companionship of her refined and intellectual mother had made her a little lady in every sense of the word. She had been taught to be kind and courteous to every one; to sympathize with people in trouble; to rejoice with them in prosperity; 46and now this woman—this cousin to her mother—this human being, whom she knew her mother once saved from a dreadful death—had received her, after her long and perilous voyage, her suffering and hardships, in this unfeeling, indifferent way. 46 She had not even taken her hand at greeting; she had looked her over and inspected her with a critical stare, as if she were some beast of burden that she was buying to toil for her. She had not offered her the commonest hospitalities of her house, or given her one kind word or look. She had instead simply, and in the coolest manner possible, commented on her marvelous escape from death, and then insulted her by speaking disparagingly of her parents; and now she had dismissed her from her presence as if she had been a menial, ordered two print dresses made for her, without a thought apparently of other clothing so necessary to her after being so long without a change of any kind. She took a step forward, her slight form drawn proudly erect, the hot, indignant blood surging over neck, face, and brow, and was about to demand the meaning of this strange treatment, when Mrs. Richards, seeing her intentions, said, haughtily, and in a tone not to be mistaken: “I told you that you could go, Stella. Did you understand me?” With a heaving bosom and flashing eyes, Star bowed with a sort of stately grace, turned and followed Mrs. Blunt from the room with the step of a queen; but when the door was shut behind them, she stopped and confronted that good though eccentric woman with an aspect which, to say the least, astonished her. 47 CHAPTER V. BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. “What does this mean?” she demanded, passionately. “Why am I received in this strange, this heartless manner, by my mother’s cousin? Why does she presume to cast aspersions upon my father and mother,
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