ay! I don't know what she'll do now. You
must not blame her too much, Nancy dear, it's the Leavitt trouble that
has made her what she is--it shadowed all our lives!"

"Aunt Milly, what was the Leavitt trouble?"

Aunt Milly looked distressed. "Then you _don't_ know? I shouldn't
have spoken of it! I promised Sabrina I wouldn't speak to you--about
it."

"But, Aunt Milly, I have a--a right to know, haven't I? Even Webb
hinted about it, and it makes me feel as though I was--well, on the
outside of things, to be kept in ignorance."

Miss Milly regarded her for a moment. "I _told_ Sabrina that you
wouldn't know! But may be you ought to. Somehow, telling things, too,
makes them seem not so dreadful! I believe we Leavitts lock troubles
away too much--don't air them enough, maybe. Sabrina thinks it's as
dreadful now as it was the day it happened. It was about our brother.
He was a year older than Sabrina. He wasn't at all like her, though,
nor like my father. He was gay and handsome, and high-spirited and
dreadfully extravagant. When I was very small I used to be frightened
at the quarrels between him and my father--and they were always over
money.

"One night--he had come home just before supper after being away for a
week, no one knew where, and my father was very angry about that--they
had a quarrel that seemed more bitter than any other. Besides, there
was a thunder-storm that made it seem worse. I had been sent to bed,
but the lightning had frightened me, and I had crept downstairs to the
sitting-room. I opened the door. They were all three--for Sabrina
always sided with my father--talking so loudly they did not hear me.
My father's face frightened me more than the lightning and my brother's
had turned dead white. I think my father had just offered him some
money, for his wallet was in his hand and on the floor lay a bill, as
though my brother had thrown it back. I began to cry and ran back to
my room, more frightened by them than by the storm. And I lay there in
my bed for hours, waiting for something to happen!"

"About midnight one dreadful bolt of lightning struck the house. It
shattered the chimney all to pieces on the outside and inside, filled
the sitting-room with dust and pieces of mortar, cracked the mantel and
moved it an inch and a half from the wall. But no one thought much of
all that, because something far more dreadful had happened! My brother
was gone and my father's wallet, t