d's support. His affairs are as bad as they can be; but
you and he shall not suffer. Of course you will leave this house, and--"

"Oh dear! What will people say? Nobody'll come to see us in a small
house. What will Mrs. Orry say?" interrupted Mrs. Newt.

"Let her say what she chooses, Nancy. What will honest people say to whom
your husband owes honest debts, if you don't try to pay them?"

"They are not my debts, and I don't see why I should suffer for them,"
said Mrs. Newt, vehemently, and crying. "When I married him he said I
should ride in my carriage; and if he's been a fool, why should I be a
beggar?"

There was profound silence in the room.

"I think it's very hard," said she, querulously.

It was useless for Lawrence to argue. He saw it, and merely remarked,

"The house will be sold, and you'll give up the carriage and live as
plainly as you can."

"To think of coming to this!" burst out Mrs. Newt afresh.

But a noise was heard in the hall, and the door opened to admit Mr. and
Mrs. Alfred Dinks.

It was the first time they had entered her father's house since her
marriage. May, who had been the last person Fanny had seen in her old
home, ran forward to greet her, and said, cheerfully,

"Welcome home, Fanny."

Mrs. Dinks looked defiantly about the room. Her keen black eyes saw every
body, and involuntarily every body looked at her--except her father. He
seemed quite unconscious of any new-comers. Alfred's heavy figure dropped
into a chair, whence his small eyes, grown sullen, stared stupidly about.
Mrs. Newt merely said, hurriedly, "Why Fanny!" and looked, from the old
habit of alarm and apprehension, at her husband, then back again to her
daughter. The silence gradually became oppressive, until Fanny broke it
by saying, in a dull tone,

"Oh! Uncle Lawrence."

He simply bowed his head, as if it had been a greeting. Mr. Bennet's foot
twitched rather than wagged, and his wife turned toward him, from time to
time, with a tender smile. Mrs. Newt, like one at a funeral, presently
began to weep afresh.

"Pleasant family party!" broke in the voice of Fanny, clear and hard as
her eyes.

"Riches have wings! Riches have wings!" repeated the gray old man,
drumming with lean white fingers upon his knees.

"Will nobody tell me any thing?" said Fanny, looking sharply round.
"What's going to be done? Are we all beggars?"

"Riches have wings! Riches have wings!" answered the stern voice of the
old man, whos