on came in about the Rainy Day
Club meeting, this morning, and she told me." There was something so
interrogative in his mother's tone that Anderson was obliged to say
something.

"They all went except the daughter, I believe," he said.

"The girl who was here?"

"Yes."

"Then she didn't go?"

"She went as far as Lancaster, but she came back?"

"Came back?"

"Yes. She didn't want to leave her father alone, and--under a cloud,
as he seems to be, and she knew if she declared she was not going
there would be opposition--that, in fact, her mother would not go."

"I don't think much of her for going, anyway," said Mrs. Anderson.
"Leaving her husband all alone. I don't care what he had done, he was
her husband, and I dare say he cheated on her account, mostly. She
ought not to have gone."

"They wanted her to go; she is not very strong; and the sister is
really ill," said Anderson, "and so the daughter planned it. She went
as far as Lancaster, then she got off the train."

"Why, I should think her mother would be crazy?"

"She sent word back, a letter by Eddy. He got off the train with her;
the train stopped there a few minutes."

"Then she came back?"

"Yes."

"And she is going to stay with her father?"

"Yes."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Anderson.

After dinner Anderson sat beside the sitting-room window with his
noon mail, as was his custom, for a few minutes before returning to
the store, and his mother came up behind him. She stroked his hair,
which was thick and brown, and only a little gray on the temples.

"She is a very pretty girl, and I think she is a dear child to come
back and not leave her father alone," she said.

Anderson did not look up, but he leaned his head caressingly towards
his mother.

"I have been thinking," said she. "I am a good deal older; she is
only a little, young girl, and I am an old lady, and I have never
called there. You know I never call on new people nowadays, but she
must be very lonely, all alone there. I think I shall go up there and
call on her some afternoon this week, if it is pleasant. I have some
other calls I want to make on the way there, and I might as well."

"I will order the coach for you any afternoon you say, mother,"
replied Anderson.

Chapter XXXV

It was the next day but one that Mrs. Anderson, arrayed in her best,
seated in state in the Rawdy coach, was driven into the grounds of
the Carroll house. Charlotte answered her ring. The elder woma