your profession, but you need not be idle. You must not
be, father says. You must look after the plantation, which has been
neglected during the dear old lady's life; you must reclaim the worn-out
soil; farm the land on scientific principles, with the aid of chemistry
and machinery and things, and improve the stock by importing new
what's-er-names. Oh, you will have plenty to do to keep you from moldering
away alive, if you look after your estate as father does after his.

"And neither shall I be idle. I shall look after the house, the servants,
the kitchen, the dairy, the poultry yard and the garden, as mother--no--as
mother does not look after hers--but, then, I am a plain, country girl,
and mamma is a grand duchess, or she ought to be. I must now stop to
dance. I can't keep still any longer. When I have done dancing I will
finish this letter."

The remainder of Odalite's epistle need not be quoted. It may be guessed.

Every one was perfectly satisfied. No one dreamed of suggesting or even
desiring the slightest change in these perfect arrangements.

The spring passed in delightful anticipations.

CHAPTER III

OLD ACQUAINTANCES

But, unhappily, in the height of midsummer, Abel Force, believing that he
acted from the purest motives of affection, but--no doubt--as the event
proved, deceived and misled by the enemy of mankind, proposed to take all
his family for a tour which should include the White Mountains, the Lakes,
the St. Lawrence River, the Thousand Islands and Niagara Falls.

Mrs. Force, who had long lost her morbid dread of public resorts,
willingly agreed to the proposed journey.

About the middle of July the party set out. They traveled very leisurely,
enjoying every foot of land and every ripple of water they passed over.

It was late in August when at length they reached Niagara. They took rooms
at the Cataract House, and spent a week in making excursions through the
magnificent scenery around the Falls.

It was in the first days of September that something of very grave import
to the future of the happy family occurred at their hotel.

The whole party, together with many of the guests of the house, were out
on one of the grand piazzas overlooking the rapids. They remained out
enjoying the sublime and almost terrific scene until the sun set and the
moon arose.

Then Mrs. Force, dreading the dampness of the September evening over the
water for her children, led the way into the house, f