him into silence when he
began to find fault with her extravagances. For she was
extravagant--there was no denying that. She cared only for show and
outward appearance. She neglected her home duties, and often left the
old man to prepare his own food, while she and Ben dashed over the
country, or through the neighboring villages, behind the blooded span
she had insisted upon his purchasing soon after their marriage.

Poor old Anson English! He was nearing his sixtieth year now, and he
looked and seemed much older. Ben was his only earthly tie, and the hope
and stay of his old age. And he was but a reed--a reed. His father saw
that at last. Ben would never develop into a practical business man. He
was unstable, lazy, and selfish. And this new wife seemed to encourage
him in every extravagant folly, instead of restraining him as the old
man had hoped. And someway Ben had never been the same since Edith went
away. He had been none too good or kind to his father before that; but
since then--well, when she went, it seemed to Anson that she took with
her whatever of gentleness or kindness lurked in Ben's nature, and left
only its brutality and selfishness.

And strive as he would to banish the feeling, the old man missed the
child.

Ah, no! he was not happy in this new state of affairs, which he had so
rejoiced over at the first. He grew very old during the next two years.
Like all men who worry the lives of women in the domestic circle, he was
cowardly at heart. And Ben's new wife frightened him into silent
submission by her masculine assumption of authority and her loud voice
and well-defined muscle.

He spoke little at home now, but he still paid frequent visits to his
neighbors, and he remained firm in the Adam-like idea that Elizabeth had
been the root of all evil in his life.

"Yes, Ben's letting the place run down pretty bad," he confessed to a
neighbor who had broached the subject. "Ben's early trainin' wasn't
right. 'Liz'beth, she let him do 'bout as he pleased. Liz'beth never had
no notions of how a boy should be trained. He'd a' come out all right if
I'd a' managed him from the start."

Strange to say, he never was known to speak one disparaging word of
Abby, Ben's second wife. Her harshness and neglect were matters of
common discussion in the neighborhood, but the old man, who had been so
bitter and unjust toward his own wife and Edith, seemed to feel a
curious respect for this Amazon who had subjugated hi