ely; but all that she
had suffered was as nothing in comparison with the sufferings of her
husband. Moreover, Hetty had kept through all these years her superb
health. Dr. Eben had had severe illnesses, which had told heavily upon
his strength. From all these things it had come to pass, that now he
looked older and more worn than Hetty. She looked vigorous; he looked
feeble; she was still comely, he had lost all the fineness of color and
outline, which had made him at forty so handsome a man. He had been
growing restless, too, and discontented.

Raby was away at college; old Caesar and Nan had both died, and their
places were filled by new white servants, who, though they served Dr.
Eben well, did not love him. Deacon Little had died also, and Jim and
Sally had been obliged to go back to the old homestead to live, to take
care of Mrs. Little, who was now a helpless paralytic.

"Gunn's," as it was still called, and always would be, was no longer the
brisk and cheerful place which it had once been. The farm was slowly
falling off, from its master's lack of interest in details; and the old
stone house had come to wear a certain look of desolation. The pines met
and interlaced their boughs over the whole length of the road from the
gate to the front-door; and, in a dark day, it was like an underground
passage-way, cold and damp. If Hetty could have been transported to the
spot, how would her heart have ached! How would she have seen, in
terrible handwriting, the record of her mistaken act; the blight which
her one wrong step had cast, not only upon hearts and lives, but even
upon the visible face of nature. But Hetty did not dream of this.
Whenever she permitted her fancy to dwell upon imaginings of her old
home, she saw it bright with sunshine, merry with the voices of little
children: and her husband handsome still, and young, walking by the side
of a beautiful woman, mother of his children.

At last Dr. Eben took a sudden resolution; the result, partly, of his
restless discontent; partly of his consciousness that he was in danger
of breaking down and becoming a chronic invalid. He offered "Gunn's" for
sale, and announced that he was going abroad for some years. Spite of
the dismay with which this news was received throughout the whole
county, everybody's second thought was: "Poor fellow! I'm glad of it.
It's the best thing he can do."

Hetty's cousin, Josiah Gunn, the man that she had so many years ago
predicted woul