ht have taken his head on her shoulder, and said, "Never mind, John!
Let's forget, and begin all over again!"

* * * * *

Matters did not look any brighter for John the next week, for his senior
partner, Joel Atterbury, requested him to withdraw from the firm as soon
as matters could be legally arranged. He was told that he had not been
doing, nor earning, his share; that his way of living during the year
just past had not been any credit to "the concern," and that he,
Atterbury, sympathized too heartily with Mrs. John Hathaway to take any
pleasure in doing business with Mr. John.

John's remnant of pride, completely humbled by this last withdrawal of
confidence, would not suffer him to tell Atterbury that he had come to
his senses and bidden farewell to the old life, or so he hoped and
believed.

To lose a wife and child in a way infinitely worse than death; to hear
the unwelcome truth that as a husband you have grown so offensive as to
be beyond endurance; to have your own sister tell you that you richly
deserve such treatment; to be virtually dismissed from a valuable
business connection;--all this is enough to sober any man above the
grade of a moral idiot, and John was not that; he was simply a
self-indulgent, pleasure-loving, thoughtless, willful fellow, without
any great amount of principle. He took his medicine, however, said
nothing, and did his share of the business from day to day doggedly,
keeping away from his partner as much as possible.

Ellen, the faithful maid of all work, stayed on with him at the old
home; Jack wrote to him every week, and often came to spend Sunday with
him.

"Aunt Louisa's real good to me," he told his father, "but she's not like
mother. Seems to me mother's kind of selfish staying away from us so
long. When do you expect her back?"

"I don't know; not before winter, I'm afraid; and don't call her
selfish, I won't have it! Your mother never knew she had a self."

"If she'd only left Sue behind, we could have had more good times, we
three together!"

"No, our family is four, Jack, and we can never have any good times,
one, two, or three of us, because we're four! When one's away, whichever
it is, it's wrong, but it's the worst when it's mother. Does your Aunt
Louisa write to her?"

"Yes, sometimes, but she never lets me post the letters."

"Do you write to your mother? You ought to, you know, even if you don't
have time for me. You could a