om her and Mr. Lurton she half-hid her face in the cover. Lurton,
perceiving that his mission to Mrs. Plausaby was ended, returned home,
intending to see Isabel when circumstances should be more favorable. But
the Ferret kept sniffing round after a secret which she knew lay not far
away. Mrs. Plausaby having suddenly grown worse, Isa determined to sit
by her during the night, but Plausaby strenuously objected that this was
unnecessary. The poor woman secretly besought Isa not to leave her alone
with Plausaby, and Isabel positively refused to go away from her
bedside. For the first time Mr. Plausaby spoke harshly to Isa, and for
the first time Isabel treated him with a savage neglect. A housekeeper's
authority is generally supreme in the house, and Isa had gradually come
to be the housekeeper. She sat stubbornly by the dying woman during the
whole night.

Mr. Plausaby had his course distinctly marked out. In the morning he
watched anxiously for the arrival of his trusted lawyer, Mr. Conger. The
property which he had married with his wife, and which she had derived
from Albert's father, had all been made over to her again to save it from
Plausaby's rather eager creditors. He had spent the preceding day at
Perritaut, whither Mr. Conger had gone to appear in a case as counsel for
Plausaby, for the county-seat had recently returned to its old abode. Mr.
Plausaby intended to have his wife make some kind of a will that would
give him control of the property and yet keep it under shelter. By what
legal fencing this was to be done nobody knows, but it has been often
surmised that Mrs. Plausaby was to leave it to her husband in trust for
the Metropolisville University. Mr. Plausaby had already acquired
experience in the management of trust funds, in the matter of Isa's
patrimony, and it would not be a feat beyond his ability for him to own
his wife's bequest and not to own it at the same time. This was the
easier that territorial codes are generally made for the benefit of
absconding debtors. He had made many fair promises about a final transfer
of this property to Albert and Katy when they should both be of age, but
all that was now forgotten, as it was intended to be.

Mr. Plausaby was nervous. His easy, self-possessed manner had departed,
and that impenetrable coat of mail being now broken up, he shuddered
whenever the honest, indignant eyes of Miss Marlay looked at him. He
longed for the presence of the bustling, energetic ma