Water Street Bookstore, Inc.

Kara Wyse lacked for nothing in her life, until her sheltered world is shattered when her father, arrested for debt, commits suicide. His legacy to Kara is poverty and the revelation that her mother, whom she believed dead, was expecting a daughter, Beatrice, when she ran off with her lover. Beatrice, brought up in poverty, is embittered when she learns of Kara's existence. She vows that Kara will pay for the wrongs she has suffered - Beatrice will take everything that was Kara's. Beatrice has been a thief too long to turn truly respectable, however, for lost innocence can never be regained.