he time would come. Now it
had come.

Mr. Barry had as yet possessed no more than a fourth of the business. He
had come in without any capital, and had been contented with a fourth.
He now suggested to Dolly that on their marriage the business should be
equally divided. And he had named the house in which they would live.
There was a pleasant, genteel residence on the other side of the water,
at Putney. Miss Grey had suggested that the business might be divided in
a manner that would be less burdensome to Mr. Barry. As for the house,
she could not leave her father. Upon the whole, she had thought that it
would be better for both of them that they should remain as they were.
By that Miss Grey had not intended to signify that Mr. Barry was to
remain single, but that he would have to do so in reference to Miss
Grey.

When he was gone Dolly Grey spent the remainder of the afternoon in
contemplating what would have been her condition had she agreed to join
her lot to that of Mr. Barry, and she came to the conclusion that it
would have been simply unendurable. There was nothing of romance in her
nature; but as she looked at matrimony, with all its blisses,--and Mr.
Barry among them,--she told herself that death would be preferable. "I
know myself," she said. "I should come to hate him with a miserable
hatred. And then I should hate myself for having done him so great an
evil." And as she continued thinking she assured herself that there was
but one man with whom she could live, and that that was her father. And
then other questions presented themselves to her, which were not so
easily answered. What would become of her when he should go? He was now
sixty-six, and she was only thirty-two. He was healthy for his age, but
would complain of his work. She knew that he must in course of nature go
much the first. Ten years he might live, while she might probably be
called upon to endure for thirty more. "I shall have to do it all
alone," she said; "all alone; without a companion, without one soul to
whom I can open my own. But if I were to marry Mr. Barry," she
continued, "I should at once be encumbered with a soul to whom I could
not open my own. I suppose I shall be enabled to live through it, as do
others." Then she began to prepare for her father's coming. As long as
he did remain with her she would make the most of him.

"Papa," she said, as she took him by the hand as he entered the house
and led him into the dining-room,--