aid health and happiness upon the bloody altars
of this false god!"

A few quick flushes went over his pale face, and then its expression
became very sad.

"Anna," he said, after a brief silence, during which even my
unpracticed eyes could see that an intense struggle was going on in his
mind, "Anna, you will have to give up your visit to Saratoga this year."

"Why, father!" It seemed as if my blood were instantly on fire. My face
was, of course, all in a glow. I was confounded, and, let me confess
it, indignant; it seemed so like a tyrannical outrage.

"It is simply as I say, my daughter." He spoke without visible
excitement. "I cannot afford the expense this season, and you will,
therefore, all have to remain in the city."

"That's impossible!" said I. "I couldn't live here through the summer."

"_I_ manage to live!" There was a tone in my father's voice, as he
uttered these simple words, partly to himself, that rebuked me. Yes, he
did manage to live, but _how_? Witness his pale face, wasted form,
subdued aspect, brooding silence, and habitual abstraction of mind!

"_I_ manage to live!" I hear the rebuking words even now--the tones in
which they were uttered are in my ears. Dear father! Kind, tender,
indulgent, long-suffering, self-denying! Ah, how little were you
understood by your thoughtless, selfish children!

"Let my sisters and mother go," said I, a new regard for my father
springing up in my heart; "I will remain at home with you."

"Thank you, dear child!" he answered, his voice suddenly veiled with
feeling. "But I cannot afford to let any one go this season."

"The girls will be terribly disappointed. They have set their hearts on
going," said I.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But necessity knows no law. They will have to
make themselves as contented at home as possible."

And he left me, and went away to his all-exacting "business."

When I stated what he had said, my sisters were in a transport of
mingled anger and disappointment, and gave utterance to many unkind
remarks against our good, indulgent father. As for my oldest sister,
she declared that she would go in spite of him, and proposed our
visiting the store of a well-known merchant, where we often made
purchases, and buying all we wanted, leaving directions to have the
bill sent in. But I was now on my father's side, and resolutely opposed
all suggestions of disobedience. His manner and words had touched me,
causing some scales to drop from m