the ashes, and asked
indifferently--

"What is the woman's name? Has she no husband to take care of her?"

"Mrs. Aubrey; she----"

"What!"

The cigar fell from his fingers, he put her from his knee, and rose
instantly. His swarthy cheek glowed, and she wondered at the expression of
his eyes, so different from anything she had ever seen there before.

"Who gave you permission to visit that house?"

"No permission was necessary. I go there because I love her and Electra,
and because I like Russell. Why shouldn't I go there, sir? Is poverty
disgrace?"

"Irene, mark me. You are to visit that house no more in future; keep away
from the whole family. I will have no such association. Never let me hear
their names again. Go to bed."

"Give me one good reason, and I will obey you."

"Reason! My will, my command, is sufficient reason. What do you mean by
catechising me in this way? Implicit obedience is your duty."

The calm, holy eyes looked wonderingly into his; and as he marked the
startled expression of the girl's pure face his own eyes drooped.

"Father, has Mrs. Aubrey ever injured you?"

No answer.

"If she has not, you are very unjust to her; if she has, remember she is a
woman, bowed down with many sorrows, and it is unmanly to hoard up old
differences. Father, please give me that money."

"I will bury my last dollar in the Red Sea first! Now are you answered?"

She put her hands over her eyes, as if to shut out some painful vision; and
he saw the slight form shudder. In perfect silence she took her books and
went up to her room. Mr. Huntingdon reseated himself as the door closed
behind her, and the lamplight showed a sinister smile writhing over his
dark features. He sat there, staring out into the starry night, and seeing
by the shimmer of the setting moon only the graceful form and lovely face
of Amy Aubrey, as she had appeared to him in other days. Could he forget
the hour when she wrenched her cold fingers from his clasp, and, in
defiance of her father's wishes, vowed she would never be his wife? No;
revenge was sweet, very sweet; his heart had swelled with exultation when
the verdict of death upon the gallows was pronounced upon the husband of
her choice; and now, her poverty, her humiliation, her blindness gave him
deep, unutterable joy. The history of the past was a sealed volume to his
daughter, but she was now for the first time conscious that her father
regarded the widow and her son with un