cluded--that it
unfits us for duty in this world of tangible and inevitable facts.

It was nearly daylight when Andrew and August and Julia reached the
castle. The Philosopher advised Julia to go home, and for the present
to let the marriage be as though it were not. August dreaded to see
Julia returned to her mother's tyranny, but Andrew was urgent in his
advice, and Julia said that she must not leave her mother in her
trouble. Julia reached home a little after daylight, and a little before
Mrs. Anderson was brought home in a fit of hysterics.

Poor Mrs. Abigail still hoped that the end of the world for which she
had so fondly prepared would come, but as the days wore on she sank into
a numb despondency. When she thought of the loss of her property, she
groaned and turned her face to the wall. And Samuel Anderson sat about
the house in a dumb and shiftless attitude, as do most men upon whom
financial ruin comes in middle life. The disappointment of his faith and
the overthrow of his fortune had completely paralyzed him. He was
waiting for something, he hardly knew what. He had not even his wife's
driving voice to stimulate him to exertion.

There was no one now to care for Mrs. Anderson but Julia, for Cynthy had
taken up her abode in the log-cabin which Jonas had bought, and a
happier housekeeper never lived. She watched Jonas till he disappeared
when he went to work in the morning, she carried him a "snack" at ten
o'clock, and headways found her standing "like a picter" at the gate,
when he came home to dinner. But Cynthy Ann generally spent her
afternoons at Anderson's, helping "that young thing" to bear her
responsibilities, though Mrs. Anderson would receive no personal
attentions now from any one but her daughter. She did not scold; her
querulous restlessness was but a reminiscence of her scolding. She lay,
disheartened, watching Julia, and exacting everything from Julia, and
the weary feet and weary heart of the girl almost sank under her
burdens. Mrs. Anderson had suddenly fallen from her position of an
exacting tyrant to that of an exacting and helpless infant. She followed
Julia with her eyes in a broken-spirited fashion, as if fearing that she
would leave her. Julia could read the fear in her mother's countenance;
she understood what her mother meant when she said querulously, "You'll
get married and leave me." If Mrs. Anderson had assumed her old
high-handed manner, it would have been easy for Julia to hav