e, I would rather leave Banbridge. I should like to live a
little nearer the City, and I should like more grounds, and a house
with more conveniences. For one thing, we have no butler's pantry
here, and that is really a great inconvenience. Take it altogether,
the house, and the distance from New York, I shall not be at all
sorry to move. And" (Mrs. Carroll's sweet face looked hard and set,
her gently pouting mouth widened into a straight line; she had that
uncanny expression of docile and yielding people when they assume a
firm attitude), "I shall not go away and leave you, Arthur," she
repeated; "Anna shall not stay here with you and I go to Aunt
Catherine's. If any one stays, I stay. I am your wife, and I am the
one to stay. I know my duty."

"Amy, dear," said Carroll, "it will really make me happier to know
that you are more comfortable and happy than I can make you this
winter."

"I shall not be comfortable and happy," said she. "No, Arthur, you
need not pet me; I am quite in earnest. You treat me always as if I
were a child. You do, and all the rest, even my own children. And I
think myself that two-thirds of me is a child, but one-third is not,
and now it is the one-third that is talking, and quite seriously. It
is I who am going to stay with you, and not Anna."

"Anna is not going to stay either, sweetheart," Carroll said.

A quick change came over Mrs. Carroll's face. She looked inquiringly
at her sister-in-law. "Anna said she would not go," she said.

"She has thought better of it," Carroll said, quietly.

"Yes, Amy, I am going," Anna said, wearily, "and I don't think you
had better decide positively to-night whether you will go or not.
Leave it until to-morrow."

"But how could you get along without anybody to keep house for you
all winter, Arthur?" asked Mrs. Carroll.

"As thousands of men get along," Carroll replied. "I can take my
meals at the inn, and somebody could be got to come by the day and
see to the furnace and the house."

"I suppose somebody could," Mrs. Carroll agreed, a frown of
reflection on her smooth forehead.

She wept piteously when it came to parting, two weeks later, but she
went.

They all started early in the morning. Carroll accompanied them to
the station, and was well aware of an unusual number of persons being
present to see the train start. He knew the reason: a rumor had
gotten about that he as well as his family was to leave Banbridge and
the State. He knew that i