o get away before she made any further progress; but
he checked me, dreading the scene which he foreboded, without
comprehending.

"Fanny," he said harshly, but with a confused face, "you mistake me."

"Not I; it was your wife and children who mistook you."

"What is it you would say?"

"You have let me be your slave."

"It is not true, I hope--what your behavior indicates?"

I forgave him everything then. Fanny had made a mistake. He had only
behaved very selfishly toward her, without having any perception of
her--that was all! She was confounded, stared at him a moment, and
rushed out. That interview settled her; she was a different girl from
that day.

"Father, you will go to Rosville, and be rich again. Can you buy this
house from Ben, for me? A very small income will suffice me and Fanny,
for you may be sure that I shall keep her. Temperance will live with
Verry; Ben will build, now that his share of his grandfather's estate
will come to him."

"Very well," he said with a sigh, "I will bring it about."

"It is useless for us to disguise the fact--I have lost you. You are
more dead to me than mother is."

"You say so."

It was the truth. I was the only one of the family who never went
to Rosville. Aunt Merce took up her abode with Alice, on account of
Arthur, whom she idolized. When father was married again, the Morgeson
family denounced him for it, and for leaving Surrey; but they accepted
his invitations to Rosville, and returned with glowing accounts of his
new house and his hospitality.

By the next June, Ben's house was completed and they moved. Its site
was a knoll to the east of our house, which Veronica had chosen. Her
rooms were toward the orchard, and Ben's commanded a view of the sea.
He had not ventured to intrude, he told her, upon the Northern Lights,
and she must not bother him about his boat-house or his pier. They
were both delighted with the change, and kept house like children.
Temperance indulged their whims to the utmost, though she thought
Ben's new-fangled notions were silly; but they might keep him from
_something worse_. This something was a shadow which frightened me,
though I fought it off. I was weary of trouble, and shut my eyes as
long as possible. Whenever Ben went from home, and he often drove to
Milford, or to some of the towns near, he came back disordered with
drink. At the sight my hopes would sink. But they rose again, he was
so genial, so loving, so calmly conten