"

Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of hanging his head nearly
came back upon him. He knew not what to say, and looked wistfully at his
father.

"Come into the house and sit down," said the latter. "I think we shall
all feel better when we have quietly and comfortably talked the matter
over."

They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, which had already been
transformed by Susan's care, so that much of its shabbiness was hidden.
When all were seated, and Samuel Flint perceived that none of the others
knew what to say, he took a resolution which, for a man of his mood and
habit of life, required some courage.

"Three of us here are old people," he began, "and the two young ones
love each other. It was so long ago, Lucy, that it cannot be laid to my
blame if I speak of it now. Your husband, I see, has an honest heart,
and will not misunderstand either of us. The same thing often turns
up in life; it is one of those secrets that everybody knows, and that
everybody talks about except the persons concerned. When I was a young
man, Lucy, I loved you truly, and I faithfully meant to make you my
wife."

"I thought so too, for a while," said she, very calmly.

Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was ever more beautiful
than his, with that expression of generous pity shining through it.

"You know how I acted," Samuel Flint continued, "but our children must
also know that I broke off from you without giving any reason.
A woman came between us and made all the mischief. I was considered
rich then, and she wanted to secure my money for her daughter. I was an
innocent and unsuspecting young man, who believed that everybody else
was as good as myself; and the woman never rested until she had turned
me from my first love, and fastened me for life to another. Little by
little I discovered the truth; I kept the knowledge of the injury to
myself; I quickly got rid of the money which had so cursed me, and
brought my wife to this, the loneliest and dreariest place in the
neighborhood, where I forced upon her a life of poverty. I thought it
was a just revenge, but I was unjust. She really loved me: she was, if
not quite without blame in the matter, ignorant of the worst that had
been done (I learned all that too late), and she never complained,
though the change in me slowly wore out her life. I know now that I
was cruel; but at the same time I punished myself, and was innocently
punishing my son. But to HI